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1841-1920 


Life  in  Christ  and  for 
Christ 


E 

I 


LIFE    IN    CHRIST   AND    FOR 
CHRIST. 


LIFE  IN  CHRIST  AND 
FOR  CHRIST. 


BY   THE    REV/ 


HANDLEY    C.    G.  ^OULE,    M.A., 

Principal  of  Ridley  Hall,  mid  formerly  Fellow  of  Trinity 
College,  Cambridge  ; 

Author  of  "  Thoughts  on  Christian  Sanctity,"  "Outlines 
of  Christian  Doctrine,"  "  Feni  Creator''  etc. 


NEW   YORK: 
A.    C    ARMSTROxNG    AND    SOxN. 

1890. 


PREFATORY    NOTE. 

The  following  Chapters  are  so  far  all  con- 
nected that  the  vital  relations  between 
our  Lord  Jesus  Christ  and  His  believing 
people  are  the  theme  of  all.  But  while 
the  first  four  form  a  consecutive  series, 
written  as  such,  the  remaining  two  were 
not  originally  designed  for  any  collocation. 
The  fifth  is,  in  fact,  a  Sermon  preached 
before  the  University  of  Cambridge  at  the 
opening  of  the  academical  year.  The 
sixth  was  written  for  a  Church  periodical, 
as  a  meditation  at  Easter-tide. 


vi  Prefatory  Note. 

To  our  Lord  and  Head  the  writer 
humbly  re-dedicates  these  few  pages, 
asking  His  merciful  use  of  them,  if  it 
be  His  will. 

North  Malvern, 
Jzcne  2Zth,  1890. 


CONTENTS. 


PAGE 

I.  Life   in  Christ;    Christ  in  Life. 

(i.)      .       .        ....        .        .    I 

II.  Life   in  Christ;    Christ    in  Life. 

(ii.)     ....        .        .        .    27 

III.  Life  in   Christ  ;  Christ  in  Life. 

(iii.)    .        .        .        .        .        .        .45 

IV.  Life  in  Christ  ;    Christ  in  Life. 

(iv.)    . 67 

V.  The  Bright  and  Morning  Star     .    87 

VI.  The  Lord  both  of  the  Dead  and 

Living 121 


Lord  Jesus  Christ,  grow  Thou  in  me, 

And  all  things  else  recede  ! 
My  heart  be  daily  nearer  Thee, 

From  sin  be  daily  freed. 

Each  day  let  Thy  supporting  might 

My  weakness  still  embrace, 
My  darkness  vanish  in  Thy  light, 

Thy  life  my  death  efface. 

In  Thy  bright  beams  which  on  me  fall 

Fade  every  evil  thought ; 
That  I  am  nothing,  Thou  art  all, 

I  would  be  daily  taught. 

Make  this  poor  self  grow  less  and  less. 

Be  Thou  my  life  and  aim  ; 
Oh  make  me  daily  through  Thy  grace 

More  meet  to  bear  Thy  name  ! 

H.  B.  Smith. 
From  the  German  ^^Lavater. 


I. 

LIFE  IN  CHRIST;  CHRIST  IN  LIFE, 


Jesus,  Thy  life  is  mine  ! 

Dwell  evermore  in  me, 

And  let  me  see 
That  nothing  can  untwine 
Thy  life  from  mine. 

F.  R.  Havergal. 


I. 

LIFE  IN  CHRIST;    CHRIST  IN  LIFE. 
i. 

T  T  is  a  happy  feature  of  our  day  that,  go 
where  we  will,  we  find  among  Chris- 
tian men  and  women  a  marked  and  mani- 
fest desire  for  "  something  more."  The 
desire  takes  very  different  shapes  and  ex- 
pressions, and  some  of  them  sadden  rather 
than  gladden  the  observer  who  knows 
the  depth  and  strength  of  the  old  "  faith 
once  delivered."  But  even  these  Jude  3. 
phenomena  have  a  connexion  with  the 
fact  that  far  and  wide  there  is  a  longing 


12     Life  in  Christ  and  for  Christ. 

for  "  a  closer  walk  with  God,"  "  a  yearning 
for  a  deeper  peace  not  felt  before,"  a 
search  after  more  power  and  serviceable- 
ness  in  the  work  of  the  Lord.  Is  not  this 
an  altogether  happy  omen  in  itself? 

The  desire  is  no  new  thing.  It  is  old 
as  the  Gospel,  and  continuous  as  the 
Gospel.  Young  Christians  who  think  it 
was  born  with  their  generation  know  little 
of  the  past,  and  will  gain  much  by  "pre- 
paring themselves  to  the  search  of  their 
fathers ; "  such  fathers,  for  example,  as 
Baxter,  and  Romaine,  and  Brainerd,  and 
Hervey,  and  Fletcher,  and  Martyn,  and 
M'Cheyne.  But  the  extent  over  which  the 
desire  is  felt  in  depth  and  force  is  a  new 
and  manifestly  growing  thing.     So  viewed. 


Life  in  Christ;    Christ  in  Life.     13 


the  phenomenon  calls  for  glad  and  thank- 
ful welcome,  and  not  least  from  the  students 
and  lovers  of  the  Christian  past.    For,  in 
its  essence,  in  its  nature,  it  is  just  a  proof 
of  the  immortal  vigour  of  the  old  Gospel. 
It  forebodes  no  change  in  one  iota  of  that 
Gospel.     It  is  a  cry  for  new  realization  of 
old  truth.     It  has  no  necessary  tendency 
towards  novel  theories  of  acceptance,  or  of 
life,  or  of  power.    No,  but  towards  a  firmer 
grasp,  a  deeper-sighted  and  more  restful 
appropriation,  a  more  buoyant  and  expect- 
ant use,  of  what  in  itself,  and  in  "  the  faith 
of  God's   elect,"   is   the    same    Tit.  i.  i. 
yesterday  and  for   ever.     Thanks   be  to 
God  for  this  stronger  and  fuller  pulse  of 
life  in   an   immortal  frame.     Happy   the 


14     Lije  in  Christ  and  for  Christ. 

Christian  man  who  feels  its  holy  warmth 
and  health  at  work  in  his  own  soul.  Happy 
the  Christian  teacher  who,  in  face  of  it, 
knows  how  to  guide  without  discouraging, 
to  warn  without  repelling,  to  welcome 
the  heavenly  upspringing  gale,  and  give 
thanks  for  it,  without  forgetting  chart, 
compass,  helm,  and  anchor. 

The  double  heading  of  these  chapters  is 
suggested  by  two  directions  of  this  blessed 
spread  of  the  "  desire  for  more."  On  the 
one  hand  there  is  a  large  and  growing 
sense  that  the  New  Testament  doctrine 
of  our  Union  with  the  Son  of  God  as 
our  Life  spiritual  and  eternal  is  a  truth 
pregnant  with  "  boundless  stores  of  grace." 
Life  in  Christ  may  be  a  phrase  sometimes 


Life  in  Christ;   Christ  in  Life.     15 

appropriated  by  error,  but  it  is  felt  by  more 
believing  souls,  and  by  yet  more,  to  be 
a  primary  treasure  of  the  truth  itself.  And 
on  the  other  side,  as  to  exercise  and  out- 
come, there  is  a  growing  sense  all  over 
our  living  Christendom  that  the  holy  life- 
power  is  meant  for  a  holy  life-practice  and 
life-service.  Christ  in  Life  is  for  many 
among  us  a  motto  charged  with  the  force 
of  a  new  realization.  In  the  rising  warmth 
and  light  of  the  spiritual  life,  certain  ima- 
ginary partitions  between  supposed  secular 
and  consecrated  parts  of  a  Christian's  walk 
and  work  melt  away  into  air.  He  discovers 
himself,  in  many  a  case  where  once  it  was 
quite  undiscovered,  to  be  always  and 
everywhere     the     bondservant    of   Jesu^ 


i6     Life  in  Christ  and  for  Christ. 

Christ,  and  the  Hving  hmb  of  the  blessed 
Head,  and  the  vital  branch  of  the  blessed 
Root.  He  not  only  accepts  as  theory 
but  assimilates  as  living  truth  the  cer- 
tainty that  he  is  everywhere  and  always 
not  his  own ;  that  he  exists  morning, 
noon,  and  night,  and  then  to-morrow  again, 
as  one  who  has  nothing  and  is  nothing 
irrespective  of  Him  in  whom  and  by  whom 
he  lives. 

Is  it  not  so  ?  And  is  it  not  a  develop- 
ing aspect  in  Christian  life,  service,  and 
witness  ?  Nothing  can  be  older-fashioned 
in  principle  and  in  individual  instances. 
It  is  as  old  as  Bishop  Ken's  ^^  Direct, 
control^  sicggest"  and  as  Charles  Wesley's 
^^  Forth  ift  Thy  name^  O  Lord,  L  go,'^  and 


Life  in  Christ;    Christ  in  Life,      ly 


very  much  older.  But  in  the  sense  of  an 
ever-widening  consciousness  in  the  com- 
munity, and  of  a  greater  and  often  sudden 
depth  of  recognition,  and  embrace,  and 
expectation,  and  restful  strength,  in  the  in- 
dividual, there  is  newness,  there  is  growth. 
In  the  three  later  chapters  of  this  little 
Series  I  propose  to  take  up  the  motto 
Christ  in  Life,  and  follow  it  into  some 
details.  In  this  chapter  let  us  think  a  little 
of  the  antecedent  and  underlying  truth, 
Life  in  Christ. 

"  God  hath  given  to  us  eternal  life,  and 
this  life  is  in  His  Son.  He  that  i  joh.  v.  n. 
hath  the  Son  hath  the  life,  and  he  that  hath 
not  the  Son  of  God  hath  not  the  life ; " 
"  Christ,  who  is  our  hfe ; "  "  Be-  Coi.  iii.  4. 


2 


1 8     Life  in  Christ  and  for  Christ. 


cause  I  live,  ye  shall  live  also  ;  "  "He  that 

joh.  xiv.  19,  eateth   Me,   even  he  shall  live 
vi.  57. 

because  of  Me ; "  "  Not  I,  but  Christ  liveth 
Gal.  ii.  20.  in  me."  Such  are  a  few  links  of 
this  bright  chain  of  truth.  I  have  nothing 
at'all  new  to  say  about  them.  But  let  us 
recollect  a  little  of  what  we  know. 

(i.)  We  know  that  the  Scripture  means 
all  that  it  says  about  Life  in  Christ.  Its 
infallible  language — in  other  words,  its 
divinely  accurate  language — certainly  does 
not  call  for  explaining  away  when  it  speaks 
of  the  believer's  life  in  the  Son  of  God. 
True,  it  does  not  therefore  demand  any 
theory  of  local  and  quasi-material  con- 
nexion and  infusion.  But  this  it  does 
demand,    that    by   our    life   in    Him    is 


Life  in  Christ;    Christ  in  Life.      19 

meant   more,    far   more,    than    emotions 
towards  Him  on  our  part,  or  even  than 
His  own  most  sacred  and  infinitely  needed 
action  of  love  and  mercy  towards  us  in 
substitution,  rescue,   protection,   and   our 
covenant  acceptance  under  His  mediation. 
Not  one  of  those  truths  can  we  really  dis- 
pense with,  if  we  would  at  once  be  awake 
and  at  peace.     Let  no  fashions  of  opinion 
discredit  for  us  the  mighty  legality  (in  the 
noblest  sense)  of  the  apostolic  presentation 
of  salvation ;  nor  let  the  inestimable  pre- 
ciousness  of  redeeming  mercy,  the  divine 
warmth  and  depth  of  saving  and  pleading 
love,  be  thrown  into  the  shadow  for  us  by 
— anything.     Nevertheless,  Life  in  Christ 
is  a  truth  not  identical  with  these   holy 


20     Life  in  Christ  and  for  Christ. 

things,  though  eternally  connected  with 
them.  It  means,  it  implies,  such  a  nexus 
of  the  regenerate  man  with  the  blessed 
Lord — incarnate,  sacrificed,  glorified — 
such  a  nexus  with  Him  by  the  power  of 
the  Holy  Comforter,  "  the  Giver  of  Life," 
as  that  a  new  and  quite  supernatural  con- 
tinuity and  oneness  is  set  up  between  the 
man  and  the  Lord.  Through  that  nexus 
Eph.  iii.  19.  the  "  fulness  of  God "  has  flow 
and  passage  into  the  will,  understanding, 
and  affections  of  the  regenerate  in  a 
sense  infinitely  deeper  than  that  of  moral 
suasion,  or  great  example,  or  emotional 
attraction.  The  man  and  the  Lord  are 
iCor. vi.17.  "one  spirit."  The  Head  has 
indeed  a  new  limb;   the  limb  a  living 


Life  in  Christ;    Christ  in  Life.     21 

and  empowering  Head.  There  is  not 
only  new  action,  (as  in  one  degree  or 
another  there  will  certainly  be,)  but  new 
basis  for  action;  a  new  fulcrum  for  the 
lever  of  love.  The  bond  is  spiritual, 
wholly.  It  is  the  Holy  Comforter.  But 
it  is  therefore  infinitely  more  than  a  vivid 
figure.  It  is  life,  it  is  power,  in  their  in- 
most and  ultimate  essence.  Such  is  the  vital 
union  of  every  regenerate  man  with  Christ, 
(ii.)  We  know,  again,  that  this  union  is 
revealed  in  order  to  be  used,  and  is 
revealed  as  a  thing  to  be  developed  in  the 
using.  And  one  all-momentous  method 
of  at  once  inwardly  using  it  and  going 
forth  with  it  to  use  it  in  outward  service 
is  the  active  exercise  of  meditation  upon 


22     Life  hi  Christ  and  for  Christ. 

it,  or  rather  upon  Him  who  is  our  Life. 
For  the  life  is  life  not  in  an  Abstraction 
but  in  Christ.  And  what  a  difference  is 
made  in  the  experience  and  employment 
of  it,  therefore,  by  the  deepening  acquaint- 
ance of  its  happy  possessor  with  Him !  Do 
you  indeed,  by  the  Holy  Spirit,  possess 
Him  ?  Then  set  yourself  anew,  as  if  for 
the  first  time,  to  acquaint  yourself  with 
Heb.  iii.  I,    Him.     "  Consider  Him."    More 

xu.  3. 

difference  than  many  a  Christian  man 
thinks  is  made  by  neglect  of  that  "  con- 
sideration." And  there  is  only  one  certain 
path  and  school  for  it ;  the  search  and 
study,  before  the  Lord,  and  in  faith  and 
prayer,  of  the  Holy  Scriptures. 

It  was  but  just  now  that  I  read  words, 


Life  in  Christ;    Christ  in  Life.     23 

written  by  a  young  Christian  man  not 
long  ago  awakened  to  Jesus  Christ,  which 
I  hope  to  remember  for  myself:  "We 
may  know  Him,  and  yet  know  very  little 
about  Him."  It  is  so.  Our  very  assur- 
ance of  life  in  the  Lord  may  be  misused 
to  slacken  our  study  of  the  Lord ;  and 
then,  soon  or  late,  our  use  and  growth 
of  life  in  Him  will  suffer.  The  Christ  of 
Prophets,  Evangelists,  and  Apostles  must 
be  our  study ;  not  "  the  Christ  that  is  to 
be,"  but  the  Christ  Jesus  who  is  Heb.xUi.s. 
the  same  for  ever.  His  Person,  His  Work, 
His  Glory — we  must  bend  over  the  revela- 
tion, the  one  revelation,  of  this,  and  (with 
reverence  be  it  said)  assimilate  it  into 
thought,   and  tone,    and   spirit,   into  the 


24     Life  in  Christ  and  for  Christ. 

cast  and  character  of  our  love,  and  joy, 
and  peace,  and  adoration. 

And  all  this,  meanwhile,  as  "  having 
life ; "  as  being  united,  in  a  depth  we 
believe  but  can  never  fully  know,  with 
Him  we  look  upon  and  worship.     So  be  it. 


II. 

LIFE  IN  CHRIST;  CHRIST  IN  LIFE, 
ii. 


From  God's  glances  shrink  thou  never, 

Meet  them  ever  ; 
Who  submits  him  to  His  grace 
Finds  that  earth  no  sunshine  knoweth 

Such  as  gloweth 
O'er  his  pathway  all  his  days. 

C.  WiNKWORTH. 

From  the  Germati  of\o^  Canitz. 


II. 

LIFE  IN  CHRIST;    CHRIST  IN  LIFE. 
ii. 

T  T  7  E  have  briefly  reviewed  something 
'  of  the  spiritual  mystery  and  fact 
of  Life  in  Christ,  taking  the  phrase  as 
expressive  of  our  Vital  Union  with  the 
Lord,  which  is  its  special  and  leading 
though  not  exclusive  reference.  Enough, 
I  trust,  has  been  said  to  guard  our  medita. 
tion  from  the  risks  inseparable  from  a  real 
oblivion  of  other  sides  of  truth  while  we 
are  treating  of  one  side,  even  of  a  pre- 
eminent side.    Union  in  covenant  interest, 


28     Life  in  Christ  and  for  Christ. 

union  in  the  merits  and  righteousness  of 
our  Head,  must  never  really  be  forgotten, 
never  dropped  out  of  thankful  appropria- 
tion, while  we  dwell  upon  this  other 
side,  the  true  vital  union  between  the 
member  and  the  Head.  The  Lord  grant  us 
so  to  hold  fast  both  aspects  of  revealed 
truth  as  that  each  shall  not  only  safe- 
guard for  us  but  vivify  and  glorify  the 
other.  But  we  are  confessedly  here  dwell- 
ing for  the  time  emphatically  upon  this 
one  aspect. 

And  now  for  a  few  short  studies  on  the 
application  of  this  divine  mystery  and 
fact.  Christ  in  Life  is  the  sequel  in 
thought,  and  concomitant  in  experience, 
to  Life  in  Christ. 


Life  in  Christ;    Christ  in  Life.     29 

A  beautiful  suggestion  of  the  deep  con- 
nexion of  these  two  holy  things  is  con- 
veyed by  what  is,  in  fact,  a  mistranslation 
in  Luther's  Bible.  Luther  renders  Philip- 
pians  i.  21,  Christiis  ist  mein  Lebeft,  und 
Sterben  ist  mein  Gewinn ;  "  Christ  is  my 
life,  and  death  is  my  gain."  The  words 
are  familiar  in  German  religious  poetry ; 
and  they  may  have  been  seen  by  some  of 
my  readers  as  a  pious  motto  on  ancient 
chalets  in  German  Switzerland ;  one  such 
I  remember,  bearing  the  date  1624,  not  far 
from  Thun.  Now  this  rendering  of  the 
first  clause  of  the  verse  cannot  be  sustained, 
it  is  true,  from  the  scholar's  point  of  view ; 
we  must  translate,  "  To  me  to  live  is 
Christ."     But  when  we  weigh  that  wonder- 


30     Life  in  Christ  and  for  Christ 

ful  little  sentence,  and  read  it  over  in  the 
light  of  Scripture,  seeking  to  enter  some- 
what into  its  depth  and  height,  does  not 
Christiis  ist  fnein  Leben  shine  through  it 
from  beneath  ?  A  life,  a  life-course  and 
life-work,  which  may  be  summed  up  and 
described  as  "  Christ,"  can  it  be  anything 
else  and  less  than  the  stiream  of  a  Spring 
which  is  the  living  Lord  Himself? 

"  To  me  to  live  is  Christ."  The  words 
elude  alike  a  superficial  explanation  and 
an  elaborate  analysis.  Their  best  exegesis 
lies  in  the  study,  and  in  the  practice,  of 
what  it  is  to  go  out  into  the  realities  of 
day  by  day  as  one  who  lives,  in  the 
secret  of  the  soul,  in  and  by  the  Son 
of  God. 


Life  in  Christ;    Christ  in  Life.     31 

"  To  go  out,"  I  have  just  said,  "  into 
the  reahties  of  day  by  day."  But  the 
words  "go  out"  must  not  be  taken  as 
relating  only  to  the  activities  of  human 
intercourse.  Christ  in  Life  is  a  princi- 
ple whose  first  outcome  is  in  secret,  in  the 
chamber  where  the  doors  are  shut.  And 
it  is  of  this  outgoing  and  exercise  of  life 
in  Christ  that  I  write  a  little  in  this  chapter, 
reserving  for  after  treatment  some  points 
of  our  walk  and  intercourse  with  men. 
Such  is  the  true  spiritual  order.  What 
the  Christian  man  really  is  in  the  home 
circle,  in  the  street  and  market,  in 
society,  in  public,  depends,  in  the  order 
of  grace,  with  an  intense  sequence  and 
connexion,  upon   what  he  is,  upon  what 


32     Life  in  Christ  and  for  Christ. 

the  Lord   is   to   him,  when   he   is   quite 
alone. 

This  most  certain  fact  has  a  special 
light  cast  upon  it  by  the  truth  of  Life 
ill  Christ.  That  truth,  as  we  ponder  it 
and  embrace  it  with  growing  realization, 
sheds  a  joyful  while  solemn  vividness 
upon  all  thoughts  of  the  Lord's  presence, 
and  of  our  intercourse  with  Him.  It 
throws  its  cords  of  life  and  love  around 
all  other  truths  of  that  presence  and  that 
intercourse,  and  draws  them  home.  All 
that  we  know  of  the  Lord's  friendship,  com- 
panionship, masterhood,  and  all  we  know 
again  of  His  mediation,  intercession,  and 
high-priesthood,  comes  home  with  ever 
renewed  preciousness   and  power   when 


Life  in  Christ;    Christ  in  Life.     33 

we  see  it  in  the  light  of  His  Life-Union 
with  us,  with  me.  Seen  in  that  light, 
how  instantaneous  is  the  touch  upon 
Him  of  the  prayer  of  the  regenerate 
behever  !  How  tender  and  powerful  the 
touch  upon  the  believer  of  His  messages 
by  the  Spirit  through  the  Word !  How 
deep  meanwhile  the  repose,  how  intense 
the  interest,  of  the  facts  of  His  work  for 
us,  for  me,  in  the  Holy  Place,  when  I 
recollect  and  realize  the  truth  that  while 
He  is  indeed  there  for  me,  a  Person 
not  myself,  pleading  the  causes  of  my 
soul,  and  dealing  most  objectively  with 
both  its  guilt  and  its  weakness,  still 
He  is  all  the  time  i?i  me,  and  I 
in    Him  —  my    Prince,    my    Priest,    but 

3 


34     Life  in  Christ  and  for  Christ. 

also     and     inseparably    my    Head,    my 
Life! 

Let  me  lay  it  down,  then,  in  humble 
earnestness,  that  the  stream  of  Christ  in 
Life  must  flow  out  from  the  well  of  Life 
in  Christ  first  and  most  in  secret.  Let 
no  inference  from  the  blessed  truth  of 
jude  24.  Jesus  Christ's  "  ability  to  keep  " 
beguile  us  into  slackness  in  watching,  pray- 
ing, adoring,  reading,  thinking,  believing, 
in  secret.  Rather,  let  us  all  the  more 
practise  diligence  over  the  secret  means 
of  grace,  because  of  a  joyful  recognition  of 
the  mighty  present  reality  of  grace,  that  is 
Phii.ii.  13.  to  say,  of  "God  working  in  us.'' 
Are  we  indeed  united  to  Jesus  Christ  who 
is  our  life  ?     Then  we  are  united  to  Him 


Life  in  Christ;    Christ  in  Life.     35 

who,  possessing  the  immeasurable  Spirit, 
yet  " continued  in  prayer,"  yes,  Luiie^i^'i 
continued  sometimes  all  night  in  it,  and 
who  so  read  the  Scriptures  that  He  knew 
how   to  draw   from   their   very  ^^"-  i^- 

•'         i-io,  etc, 

nooks  and  corners  the  sword  with  which 
to  lay  low  the  Tempter.  Are  we  united 
to  Him?  Then  we  are  united  to  One 
who  loved  not  only  to  request,  but  to 
adore;  whose  blessed  prayer,  Joh. xvii. 
uttered  indeed  in  His  disciples'  hearing, 
but  yet  in  the  Secret  of  the  Presence,  is 
steeped  throughout  in  an  indescribable 
reverence  j  "  Holy  Father,"  ^'  Righteous 
Father." 

Here  then  is  a  manifestation  of  Life  in 
Christy  underlying  every  other,  antecedent 


^6     Life  in  Christ  and  for  Christ. 

in  a  sense  to  every  other — Christ  iJi  the 
Life  of  the  secret  place  and  hour.  Christ 
in  that  hfe — what  will  it  mean?  It  will 
.  mean  for  one  thing  a  patient  and  exploring 
study  of  the  Scripture,  even  as  He  studied 
it.  It  will  mean  prayer  and  adoration  in- 
stinct with  His  presence  and  life.*  The 
believer  will  take  his  Lord,  as  the  Gospels 
present  Him,  for  his  pattern  in  this  secret 
walk  with  the  Father;  while  he  will  add 
always  to  the  thought  of  the  pattern  the 
truth  of  the  Mystical  Union.  He  ap- 
proaches Him  that  is  invisible  as  one 
who  indeed   "  has   access,  introduction " 


*  I  may  be  permitted  to  refer  to  my  little  book 
Secret  Prayer  for  further  suggestions. 


Life  in  Christ;    Christ  in  Life.     37- 


"/;?  the  Beloved."  To  speak  ^ph-,^.^' 
in  terms  of  the  simplest  practicality,  the 
living  Christian  will  do  anything  rather 
than  make  his  "  life  "  an  excuse  for  indo- 
lence, and  for  want  of  method  and  self- 
discipline,  in  secret  devotion;  or  for  a. 
want  of  adoring  reverence  in  the  manner 
of  it ;  or  for  neglect  of  the  Written  Word 
as  a  vital  element  in  it,  and  as  the  one 
sure  guide  and  guard  of  it  all  along.  He 
will  most  specially  take  care  that  "  Christ  " 
is  thus  "  in  his  life  "  in  respect  of  morning 
intercourse  with  Him.  His  "morning 
watch  "  will  be  a  time  of  sacred  necessity 
and  blessed  benefit.  He  will  not  merely 
confess  the  duty  of  "  meeting  God  before 
he  meets  man."     He  will  understand  that 


38     Life  in  Christ  and  for  Christ. 

he  cannot  do  without  it,  if  indeed  he  would 
deal  with  the  unfolding  day  as  it  should  be 
dealt  with  by  one  whose  "  life  is  hid  with 
Col.  iii.  3.  Christ  in  God  "  ;  one  who  pos- 
sesses the  priceless  treasure  of  the  blessed 
Union,  "joined  to  the  Lord,  one  spirit," 
and  who  has  his  treasure  at  hand,  in  hand, 
for  use.  And  he  will  be  not  less  watchful 
over  his  evening  interview  with  Him  who  is 
at  once  his  Master  and  his  Life ;  coming 
with'punctual  reverence  to  Him  who  mean- 
Gai.  ii.  20.  while  "  livcth  in  him,"  to  report 
the  day's  bond-service,  to  confess  the  day's 
sins  in  contrite  simplicity,  to  look  again  de- 
liberately upon  the  Master's  face  mirrored 
in  His  Word,  to  feel  again  the  bond  of  the 
Union,  tested  and  handled   through  the 


Life  in  Christ;    Christ  in  Life.     39 

promises ;  and  then  to  lie  down  in  the 
peace  of  God.  And  will  he  not  see 
whether  some  mid-day  interval,  if  but  for 
a  few  brief  minutes,  cannot  be  found  and 
kept  sacred,  for  a  special  prayer  and  watch 
halfway  ?  Such  stated  times  are  no  sub- 
stitutes for  the  spiritual  attitude  in  which 
the  "  eyes  are  ever  towards  the  p^^^-  ^-'^^'• 
Lord " ;  but  they  are,  I  believe,  quite 
necessary  in  order  to  the  proper  prepared- 
ness of  the  soul  for  tha*  ^ctitude,  and  for 
the  right  use,  too,  of  all  social  and  public 
ordinances.  Nothing  can  annul  the  vital 
need  of  secret  and  deliberate  communion 
with  Him  in  whom  we  live,  by  whom  we 
move. 

As    I    close,    let    me    remember    that 


40     Life  in  Christ  and  for  Christ. 

Christ  in  secret  Life  does  not  mean 
only  Christ  in  secret  devotion.  Most 
men  have  some  work  to  do,  some  leisure 
to  dispose  of,  in  secret ;  some  men  have 
much.  Let  the  man  who  indeed  has  Life 
in  Christ  remember  that  in  secret  work 
and  secret  leisure  Christ  must  be  in  Life. 
Toiling  in  his  study,  resting  at  his  fireside, 
walking  in  the  quiet  field,  threading  the 
solitude  of  the  crowded  street,  he  is  still 
"joined  unto  the  Lord,  one  spirit."  In 
that  fact  lie  secrets  of  the  noblest  freedom. 
It  is  a  fact  able  to  fit  into  the  widest 
range  of  interests,  and  into  greatly  varying 
moods  of  natural  emotion.  It  has  nothing 
to  do  with  a  Stoic  "  apathy. ^^  Rather,  it 
is  able  to  quicken  and  refine  every  pure 


Life  in  Christ;    Christ  m  Life.     41 

sympathy  as  nothing  else  can  do.  But 
meanwhile  it  has  its  restraint  as  well  as 
its  animation ;  it  has  its  noblesse  oblige^  for 
the  Christian  who  recollects,  alone  as  well 
as  in  company,  that  the  Spirit  is  in  him, 
and  Christ  by  the  Spirit. 


Jesus,  I  live  to  Thee, 
Thou  lovehest  and  best ; 
My  hfe  in  Thee,  Thy  Hfe  in  me — 
In  Thy  blest  love  I  rest. 

Living  or  dying,  Lord, 
I  ask  but  to  be  Thine  ; 
My  life  in  Thee,  Thy  life  in  me, 
Make  heaven  for  ever  mine. 

H.  Harbaugh 


III. 

LIFE   IN  CHRIST;    CHRIST  IN  LIFE. 


We  are  the  Lord's  !  —in  life,  in  death  remaining, 
We  are  the  Lord's,  the  Crucified,  the  Son  ; 

We  are  the  Lord's,  the  mighty  King  now  reigning  ; 
We  are  the  Lord's,  who  fought  for  us  and  won. 

We  are  the  Lord's  ! — His  holy  name  thus  naming 
Ours  be  the  life  with  which  His  name  accords  ; 
By  thought,  by  speech,  by  deed  each  day  proclaiming, 
Louder  than  words  can  speak,  "We  are  the  Lord's." 

"H.  L.  L." 
From  the  German  <y^SPlTTA. 


III. 

LIFE  IN  CHRIST;    CHRIST  IN  LIFE. 
iii. 

/^^UR  thoughts  in  the  previous  chapter 
^^  took  the  hne  of  the  secret  and  soH- 
tary  parts  of  hfe.  We  go  out  from  this 
privacy  to-day  into  the  broad  open  field, 
into  the  days  and  hours  which  we  spend 
in  active  intercourse.  The  vastness  of 
the  subject  would  be  not  only  discourag- 
ing but  prohibitive  if  I  had  the  dream  of 
treating  it,  or  even  a  part  of  it,  in  detail. 
What  thoughtful  man  is  not  growingly 
aware  of  the  infinity  of  duty,  of  the  variety 


46     Life  in  Christ  and  for  Christ 

of  circumstances  in  their  incidence  on 
character,  of  the  impossibility  of  construct- 
ing a  priori  solutions  in  detail  for  all  pos- 
sible cases  of  conscience  ?  Who  does  not 
feel,  as  life  goes  on,  and  wears  into  our 
beings  the  "  line  on  line  "  of  its  lessons, 
or  rather  of  the  Lord's  lessons  through  it, 
that  it  is  the  most  impossible  of  things  to 
be  the  conscience  of  another  man ;  that, 
for  example,  the  experiences  of  different 
lines  of  life  and  work  vary  so  much  and 
in  such  subtle  ways  that  the  traveller  in 
one  line  only  cannot  possibly  divine  by 
instinct  many  of  the  special  temptations 
of  another?  Nay,  in  the  subdivision  of 
labour,  different  tracks  worn  on  the  same 
high-road    have    characteristics    all    their 


Life  in  Christ;    Christ  in  Life.     47 

own.  A  clergyman  whose  life-work  is 
academic  teaching  cannot  enter  a  priori 
into  many  special  problems  constantly 
presented  to  his  pastor-brother;  nor  can 
the  pastor  in  the  town  tell  by  "  inner  con- 
sciousness "  what  are  the  tests  and  burthens 
of  his  brother  in  th-e  country. 

A  sense  of  the  importance  and  reality 
of  such  details  of  life  is  just  what  warns 
me  not  to  try  to  meddle  with  them  directly. 
In  these  two  remaining  chapters  of  the 
series  I  would  rather  seek,  by  the  heavenly 
Master's  grace,  to  get  in  some  sense  behind 
or  within  the  vast  world  of  details  to  an  in- 
terior so  central  that  its  power  may  radiate 
into  them  all,  and  that  the  Christian  of 
whatever  character  or  calling  may  recog- 


48     Life  in  Christ  and  for  Christ. 

nize  a  something  which  comes  home  to 
his  need. 

In  this  view  I  will  say  a  little  here  of 
Life  ill  Christ  and  Christ  in  Life  in  the 
direction  of  the  detaching  ajtd  sepa7'ating 
power  of  those  truths.  Later,  with  God's 
merciful  help,  we  will  consider  their  power 
to  give  us  true  contact  and  sympathy  with 
circumstances. 

"Their  detaching  and  separating  power." 
It  is  one  of  the  paradoxes  of  the  Gospel 
that  it  separates  in  order  to  unite.  It 
demands  of  its  disciples,  who  are  to  be 
Matt.  y.  13.    <£  the  salt  of  the  earth,"  that  in 

Col.  Ill,  2.  ' 

order  to  this  they  shall  "not  set  their  affec- 
tion on  things  on  the  earth."  In  order  to 
the  blessing  of  the  world,  in  order  that  the 


Life  in  Christ;    Christ  in  Life.     49 

world  through  them  may  be  led  to  believe 
that  the  Father  sent  the  Son,  they  are  to 
be  "not  of  the  world;"  "  de-  joh.xvii.i6,- 

Gal.  i.  4  ; 

livered  from  this  present  evil  ^  J^^-  "•  ^s- 
world;"  "loving  not  the  world,  nor  the 
things  that  are  in  the  world."  The  Lord 
Jesus  Christ  endorses  the  spirit  of  the  Mo- 
saic precept,  "He  that  curseth  Exod. xxi. 

17; 
father  or  mother,  let  him  die  the  ^^".  xv.  4. 

death ; "  and  the  Gospel  may  be  said  to  be 

the  almost  creator  of  Home,  the  true  secret 

and  life  of  the  sanctities  and  charities  of 

the  Family.     Yet  the  same  lips  have  said, 

"  If  any  man  hate  not  his  father  Luke  xiv. 

26. 

and  his  mother,  he  cannot  be  my  disciple." 
Is  there  a  contradiction  in  these  sayings  ? 
Indeed  there  is  upon  the  surface ;  but  in 

4 


50     Life  in  Christ  and  for  Christ. 

the  depth  they  strike  a  holy  and  mighty 
harmony.  In  order  to  the  true  work  and 
true  joy  of  all  human  relationships,  and 
intercourse,  and  help,  and  influence,  there 
must  be  an  internal  separation  in  the  re- 
generate man ;  a  separation  from  the 
creature  as  rival  to  the  Creator  and  Re- 
deemer, a  separation  from  self  to  Jesus 
Christ.  That  separation  is  the  truest 
pathway  to  the  deepest  and  most  fruitful 
experiences  of  sympathy  and  contact. 

The  whole  Gospel  is  full  of  the  truth  of 
this  internal  separation.  It  has  much  to 
say  indeed  about  external  separations, 
for  which  need  may  often  arise.  But  it 
has  vastly  more  to  say  about  this  detach- 
ment inwardly.     Every  precept  bears  upon 


Life  in  Christ;    Christ  in  Life,     51 

it  which  speaks  of  supreme  love  to  God ; 
of  "forsaking  all  that  we  have"  Lukexiv. 

33- 

for  Christ;  of  being  the  Lord's  Eph.'i/i47* 
property  whether  we  live  or  die ;  of 
being  His  "purchased  possession,"  His 
servants  in  a  literal  bondage,  brought 
about  by  redemption,  and  reverently 
owned,  and  in  some  measure  realized,  in 
self-surrendering  faith.  The  great  range 
of  truth  connected  with  Atonement  and 
Satisfaction  bears  upon  this,  because  it 
bears  with  such  intense  directness  on  the 
transference  of  us  from  the  usurping  master 
to  the  true  Master,  who  died  for  us  that 
we  might  go  free  and  yet  never  go  free ; 
"  redeemed    from    the    curse,"  ^^^-  "i-.  ^3 ; 

'       Kom.  VI.  22. 

"  made  bond-servants  to  God."     But  our 


52     Life  in  Christ  and  for  Christ. 

present  concern  is  with  the  way  in  which 
the  truth  of  the  Vital  Union  bears  on  this 
holy  separation ;  Life  in  Christ  coming  out 
into  Christ  in  Life,  in  respect  of  this  inner 
detachment  of  the  believer. 

I  scarcely  need  point  out  in  much  detail 
how  it  does  so.  The  mere  statement  of 
the  facts  about  it  carries  at  once  with  it 
this  deep,  tender,  searching  inference.  I 
am  "joined  unto  the  Lord,  one  spirit."  I 
Col.  ii.  19.  live  by  "  holding  the  Head,"  and 
deriving  hfe  and  strength  from  Him,  out  of 
His  fulness,  in  close  and  growing  contact 
with  Him,  in  "  growth  into  Him."  I  am  a 
being  so  related  to  Him  that  a  separation 
from  Him  destroys  altogether  my  true 
raison  d'etre.     Imagine  a  branch  cut  off 


Life  in  Christ;    Christ  in  Life.     53 


and   thrown  upon   the   garden-path,   and 
claiming  to  be  a  thing  having  a  purpose 
and   a  reason   in   its  being!     Imagine  a 
finger    amputated    from    the    body,    and 
claiming  to  be  a  substantive  body  !     And 
even   so   imagine,  if  it  were   possible,  a 
believing  Christian  dislocated  from  Jesus 
Christ    and    claiming    to    lead    for    one 
moment   a    true    life,   with   a  faculty,   a 
reason,  and  an  end  !     The  imagery  of  the 
Gospels  and  Epistles,  the  language  about 
branch   and  limb,   is   directed   expressly 
against   such   a  mistake.      Other   figures 
might  have  given  the  thought  of  life,  and 
of  life  imparted  from  a  divine  source;  but 
these    give    also,    and    inseparably,    the 
thought  of  life  maintained  by  contact  with 


54     -^^  ^^  Christ  and  for  Christ. 

that  source,  and  no  other,  and  (especially 
in  the  imagery  of  the  Head  and  Limb) 
life  essentially  appropriated,  devoted, 
separated,  to  the  purposes,  not  of  the 
limb,  but  of  the  Head.  Truly  to  recol- 
lect this  relation  of  ours  to  Jesus  Christ 
and  truly  to  accept  it  and  put  it  into  con 
scious  life  and  work,  is  a  deep  secret  of 
that  internal  separation  of  which  we  are 
thinking.  And,  like  so  much  else  in  the 
Scripture  doctrine  of  the  sanctification  of 
the  saints,  it  is  a  positive,  not  a  negative, 
secret.  The  separation  is  not  wrought  in 
vacuum,  but  into  Jesus  Christ.     It  is  not 

Coi.ii.2i,     merely  "touch   not,   taste   not, 

27,111.2,3.  •> 

handle  not,"  but  "  you  died,  and  your  life 
is  hid  with  Christ  in  God;"    "set   your 


Life  in  Christ;    Christ  in  Life.     55 

affection  on  things  above,  where  Christ  is, 
seated  at  the  right  hand  of  God,"  whilst 
also  He  is  "  in  you,  the  hope  of  glory." 

We  observed  in  the  preceding  chapter 
how  every  sacred  truth  of  our  interest  in 
Christ  for  acceptance,  our  peace  before 
God's  infinitely  holy  Law,  and  so  forth, 
is  (not  confused,  or  replaced,  but)  brought 
home  by  the  truth  of  the  holy  Vital  Union. 
We  may  say  the  same  here,  with  respect 
to  its  power  over  all  the  large  range  of 
Scripture  precepts  of  holiness ;  all  that 
bids  us  "  cleanse  ourselves  from  sCor.vii.  i. 
all  filthiness  of  the  flesh  and  of  the  spirit, 
carrying  on  the  completion  of  holiness  in 
the  fear  of  God  : "  all  that  bids  ^  Cor.  vi. 

17;  V. 15. 

us  "be  separate,  and  touch  not  the  un- 


56     Life  in  Christ  and  for  Christ. 

clean  thing;"  "live  not  unto  ourselves, 
but "  altogether  and  always  "  unto  Him 
that  for  us  died  and  rose  again."  Many 
a  reason,  supremely  reasonable,  does  the 
Scripture  give  us  for  so  living  separate 
from  self  and  sin ;  many  a  motive,  pro- 
foundly moving,  in  the  sphere  of  gratitude, 
and  affection,  and  hope,  and  right.  But 
underneath  them  all,  connecting  itself  as 
a  chain  of  life  with  them  all,  is  this  truth 
of  Life  in  Christ.  Believing  Christian, 
the  free  grace  of  God  has  brought  you 
into  a  personal  and  vital  contact,  divinely 
real,  with  Him  whose  work  for  you  presents 
these  motives,  and  whose  precepts  about 
your  inner  as  wxU  as  outer  action  are  so 
•explicit   and   so   absolutely  authoritative. 


Life  in  Christ ;    Christ  in  Life.     57 

You,  the  recipient  of  motive  and  precept, 
are  spiritually  one  with  Him,  "joined  unto 
Him,  one  spirit ; "  possessed,  because  of 
Him,  of  the  resources  of  that  regenerate 
nature  which  is  no  abstraction  but  the 
life  and  strength  of  the  glorified  Head 
conveyed  daily  and  hourly  to  you  by  the 
Holy  Spirit.  Your  reception  of  that  life 
and  strength  is,  indeed,  always  imperfect 
here,  in  the  mystery  of  the  results  of  the 
Fall.  But  your  contact  none  the  less  is 
real,  and  your  reception  may  be  made 
indefinitely  larger,  freer,  and  more  con- 
tinuous by  the  same  Spirit  who  effected 
the  contact,  and  "  by  "  whom  Gai.  v.  25. 
you  are  to  "  walk  "  as  well  as  "  live."  He 
who  bids  you  be  separate  from  the  interests, 


58     Life  in  Christ  and  for  Christ. 

ambitions,  and  vanities  of  self  is  He  who 
by  His  Spirit  dwells  in  your  heart  by  faith. 
He  who  bids  you  lay  down  upon  His 
sacred  altar  your  dearest  affection,  your 
most  delightful  pursuit,  your  most  gainful 
occupation,  iit  respect  of  any  rivalry  of 
these  things  with  His  dai?jis,  any  reluct- 
ance of  yours  to  be  submitted  in  them 
entirely  to  His  mind  and  views,  is  He  who 

Prov.  xviii.  "sticketh  closer  than  a  brother" 
24. 

in  a  union  with  your  being  which  has  no 
parallel  save  in  the  heaven  of  heavens ;  a 
union  in  which  eternal  life  and  tenderest 
personal  love  run  for  ever  into  each  other 
and  into  you.  He  who  calls  you  to  an 
internal  detachment  from  the  imaginations 
that  defile  you,  from  the  self-will  and  the 


Ufe  in  Christ;    Christ  in  Life,     59 


self-ful  anger  or  impatience  that  becloud 
and  embitter  you,  speaks  to  you  about  it 
all  not  only  from  the  throne  (as  He  does), 
but    also    from    the    depth   of  Eph.  ui.  x6. 
that  "inner  man"  which  His  Spirit  has 
"strengthened,"  that  He  may  dwell  there ; 
speaks  from  "the  midst  of  His   Psai.cx... 
enemies"  and  yours.     He   does   not,  as 
from    a   distant   height,   bid    you   attack 
them,   encouraged    only   by   His    notice 
and  approval.     He  is  present  to  be  your 
separating  power,  because  of  His  union 
with  your  inmost  self. 

In  the  light  and  strength  of  this  great 
Scripture  truth,  then,  let  us  "  come  out 
and  be  separate,"  in  no  cold  soli-  ^  ^°"-  ''^• 
tude,  but  in  Jesus  Christ,  in  whom  we  live, 


6o     Life  in  Christ  and  for  Christ 

who  lives  in  us.  He  is  nearer  than  all  cir- 
cumstances. He  is  more  internal  than 
even  all  temptations.  He  is  able  to  be  in 
fact,  as  well  as  of  course  in  right,  the  cen- 
tral point  of  every  believing  life,  and  to 
detach  it,  in  a  true  and  blessed  sense — 
never  interfering  with  humiliation  and 
confession — from  the  life  of  self  and  sin. 
As  sure  as  His  word  is  truth,  He  is  able 
to  be  thus  "  in  life,"  day  by  day,  for  all 
His  true  people.  Be  their  callings  in 
His  providence  what  they  may  be.  He 
can  place  Himself  at  the  middle  point  of 
thought,  purpose,  and  plan.  He  can  so 
occupy  that  point,  for  the  Christian  mer- 
chant, or  lawyer,  or  doctor,  as  that  the 
love  of  gain  and   of  fame,    for  its   own 


Life  in  Christ ;    Christ  in  Life.     6 1 

sake,  shall  be  "  mortified,"  every  day  and 
hour,  by  His  Presence ;  by  that  peaceful, 
powerful,  living  'positive.  And  who  can 
estimate  the  new  facility  and  decision 
which  would  come  into  the  interior  of 
many  an  estimable  life,  and  so  into  its 
outward  work  and  witness  for  Christ,  if 
but  that  one  work  were  truly  done  within, 
the  "  mortification  "  of  those  two  loves  ? 
And  Christ  can  so  occupy  the  central 
point  for  the  Christian  minister  of  Word 
and  Sacraments  as  that  the  cancers  of 
jealousy  and  vanity  (twin  evils,  oppo- 
site sides  of  one  evil)  shall  be  effectually 
healed ;  and  so,  too,  the  secret  sloth,  so 
apt  to  seize  upon  the  spirit  in  a  life  and 
calling  whose  very  sacredness  brings  with 


62     Life  in  Christ  and  for  Christ. 

it  some  special  possibilities  of  minimizing 
exertion.  He  can  so  occupy  the  centre 
as  that  the  man,  be  he  what  he  may  be 
in  himself  and  his  surroundings  of  duty, 
shall  in  a  large  and  blessed  sense,  in  the 
full  daylight  of  real  life  in  modern  times, 
"see  all  in  God,  and  God  in  all,"  and 
that  in  the  Christian  sense  of  "  seeing  " 
and  of  "  God."  And  this  is  the  inmost 
element  of  separation. 

"  Let  us  give  ourselves  up  to  God,"  says 
holy  Fenelon,  in  one  of  his  Meditations  for 
a  Month  {Day  22),  "  without  reserve  or  ap- 
prehension of  danger.  He  alone  will  fill 
our  heart,  which  the  world  has  agitated 
and  intoxicated,  but  could  never  fill.  He 
will  take  nothing  from  us  but  what  makes 


Life  in  Christ ;    Christ  in  Life.     63 

us  unhappy.  He  will  alter  little  (very  pos- 
sibly) in  our  actions,  and  only  correct  the 
motive  of  them,  by  making  them  all  to 
be  referred  to  Himself.  Then  the  most 
ordinary  and  seemingly  indifferent  actions 
shall  become  exercises  of  virtue.  Then 
we  shall  cheerfully  behold  death  approach 
as  the  beginning  of  life  immortal ;  and,  as 
St  Paul  speaks,  'we  shall  not  be  un- 
clothed, but  clothed  upon,  that  mortality 
might  be  swallowed  up  of  life.'  " 

I  was  permitted  not  long  ago  to  see 
a  letter  written  by  an  eminent  and  be- 
loved Christian,  recently  laid  on  what 
seemed  to  be  the  bed  of  death,  now  in 
some  degree  restored.  "  He  made,"  so 
ran    one   sentence,    "  the   valley   of   the 


64     Life  in  Christ  and  for  Christ. 

shadow  of  death  a  hghted  place  for  me, 
by  letting  me  find  Him,  the  Lord  of  Life, 
to  be  infinitely  nearer  than  death,  when 
death  was  so  near."  Such  be  our  experi- 
ence too  in  due  time ;  a  separation  in 
death  to  Jesus  Christ.  And  let  it  be 
approached  through  a  holy  intimacy  with 
Him  in  a  separation  to  Him  in  life. 
Amen. 


IV. 

LIFE  IN  CHRIST;    CHRIST  IN  LIFE. 
iv. 


I  ASK  Thee  for  a  thoughtful  love, 
Through  constant  watching  wise, 

To  meet  the  glad  with  joyful  smiles, 
And  wipe  the  weeping  eyes  ; 

And  a  heart  at  leisure  from  itself 
To  soothe  and  sympathize. 

Wherever  in  the  world  I  am, 

In  whatsoe'er  estate, 
I  have  a  fellowship  with  hearts 

To  keep  and  cultivate, 
And  a  work  of  lowly  love  to  do 

For  the  Lord  on  whom  I  wait. 

A.  L.  Waring. 


IV. 

LIFE  IN  CHRIST;   CHRIST  IN  LIFE. 
iv. 

T^ROM  the  separating  power  of  the 
reahzed  truth  of  Life  in  Christ  we 
pass  to  the  thought  of  its  power  to  imite 
the  Christian  to  things  around  him,  to 
give  him  contact  and  sympathy  with 
circumstances. 

Once  more,  however,  let  me  emphasize 
the  previous  considerations.  The  internal 
detachment  we  have  spoken  of  is  a  thing 
so  wholly  supernatural  in  its  reason  and  its 
process  that  we  may  well  be  allowed  to 


68     Life  in  Christ  and  for  Christ. 

assert  to  ourselves  its  sacred  necessity 
again  and  again.  It  is  a  necessity  indeed. 
Whatever  else  is  important  to  a  true  life 
lived  according  to  the  will  of  God,  this  is 
necessary ;  a  separation  of  soul  and  will 
to  Jesus  Christ,  in  the  power  of  our  re- 
demption by  His  blood  to  be  His  pro- 
perty, and  of  our  union  with  Him  by 
His  Spirit  to  be  His  living  limbs.  As 
this  separation  is  realized  in  our  con- 
sciousness, and  carried  into  our  spiritual 
practice,  so  shall  we  grow  in  the  exercise 
of  that  influence  which  resides  in  freedom, 
iCor.vi.i2.  in  "not  being  brought  under 
the  power "  of  circumstances,  in  acting 
upon  them  from  a  position  which  is  in 
fact  above  them* 


Life  in  Christ;    Christ  in  Life.     69 


Of  such  detachment,  in  and  to  Jesus 
Christ,  we  see  a  noble  illustration  in  the 
closing  words  of  the  Epistle  to     vi.  17. 
the  Galatians  ;  "Let  no  man  trouble  me  ; 
for  I  bear  in  my  body  the  marks   (the 
brand,  the  stigmata)  of  the  Lord  Jesus." 
St   Paul   is    separated    to    the    heavenly 
Master   as   his    purchased   and    branded 
property ;  therefore   he  calmly  warns  off 
the  intrusion  of  men  from  his  region  of 
witness  and  of  work.     The  realization  of 
his   indissoluble    connexion   with    Christ, 
and  it  alone,  gives  him  the  instinct  and 
tone — not  of  petulant  displeasure  but  of 
immovable   decision,   of  quiet   authority, 
amidst   the  conflicting  voices  of  dispute 
and   opposition.     And    the   same   secret 


70     Life  in  Christ  and  for  Christ. 

and  the  same  power,  appear  later  in  the 
Phil.  i.  15-  same   man's  experience.     It  is 
where  he  has  to  encounter  a  double  strain 
of   circumstances;    conduct    to    the   last 
degree  trying  on  the  part  of  certain  pro- 
fessing  Christians,   and   the  suspense  of 
his  own  life  or  death  upon  the  caprice  or 
delays   of  a  pagan  judge.     He  rises,  or 
rather  he  already  stands,  superior  to  both 
temptations  ;  he   is  not  exasperated,  nor 
is  he  anxious.     And  the  secret  is,  that  he 
is  united  to  Jesus  Christ  in  a  way  which 
makes    Jesus   Christ   all   in   all    to   him. 
"  Christ  is  preached  " ;  "  To  me  to  live  is 
Christ;"    "To    depart    is    to    be    with 
Christ ;  "   "  My  earnest   expectation  and 
my  hope  is,  that  Christ  shall  be  magnified 


Life  in  Christ;    Christ  in  Life,     yi 

in  my  body,  whether  it  be  by  life  or  by 
death." 

St  Paul  understood  indeed  the  great 
secret  of  internal  detachment.  And  the 
secret  is  an  open  secret.  It  is  not  locked 
up  within  the  privileges  of  apostleship 
and  inspiration,  nor  again  within  the 
prerogatives  of  genius.  It  is  hidden  in 
Jesus  Christ,  and  to  be  discovered  by  en- 
tering upon  union  with  Him,  and  then 
examining  the  treasures  laid  up  in  Him 
for  the  man  united  to  Him,  and  separated 
by  that  uniting  from  the  bondage  of  all 
else. 

The  name  and  example  of  the  Apostle 
leads  us  by  a  just  and  beautiful  transition 
to  that  other  side  of  truth  which  we  are 


J72     Life  in  Christ  and  for  Christ. 

■considering  to-day.  If  St  Paul  was  in 
one  respect  as  truly  detached  from  cir- 
<:umstances  as  perhaps  any  redeemed 
■man  ever  was,  in  another  respect  he  threw 
himself  into  circumstances,  and  felt  and 
handled  them,  and  acted  upon  them,  to 
an  extraordinary  degree.  One  brief  period 
of  seclusion,  if  it  was  seclusion,  he  spent 
Gal.  i.  17.  in  "  Arabia."  Then,  till  the  end 
of  his  days,  he  was  never  alone ;  immersed 
in  the  most  miscellaneous  intercourse ;  in 
communication,  ay,  and  in  living  touch, 
with  endless  differences  of  character ; 
applying  a  heart  of  fraternal  and  paternal 

1  Cor. ix. 22.  sympathy  to  the  effort  to  "save 

2  Lor.  XI.  28.      •'      ^         •' 

some,"    and    to    "  the    care    of   all    the 

Churches." 


Life  in  Christ;    Christ  in  Life.     73 

In  this,  too,  the  great  Saint  is  an 
example  for  all  saints.  His  detachment 
was  of  the  essence  of  the  Gospel ;  and 
equally  his  attachment ;  his  sympathy, 
and  insight,  and  interest ;  his  response  to 
everything  that  came  really  in  his  path  of 
service. 

Christian,  recognize  and  realize  this 
fact  of  Life  in  Christy  of  Christ  in  Life. 
You  are  not  a  St  Paul  in  range  of  natural 
capacity,  in  vastness  of  influence,  in  height 
of  spiritual  authority.  But  quite  as  truly 
as  St  Paul  you  are  in  Jesus  Christ  the 
Son  of  God,  our  Life.  And  for  you  quite 
as  truly  as  for  him  it  is  the  will  of  God 
that  you  should  expose  yourself  to  the 
circumstances  of  His  choice,  not  seclude 


74     J-if^  i^  Christ  and  for  Christ. 

yourself  from  them.  The  New  Testament 
does  not  recognize  the  hermitage.  It 
nowhere  contemplates  with  approval,  •■  or 
rather,  it  nowhere  considers  the  existence 
of  a  life  spent  in  educating  itself  in  a 
solitary  and  abstract  sanctity.  It  calls  the 
disciple  out  into  the  life  of  home,  the  life 
of  the  Church,  the  life  so  far  lived  in  the 
world  that  the  world  at  least  can  see  it, 
touch  it,  apply  its  microscope  to  it,  and 
try  to  understand  it.  It  reminds  the  man 
Col.  iii.  2, 3.  whose  "  affection  is  set  on  things 
above,"  whose  "  life  is  hid  with  Christ  in 
God,"  that  he  owes  loyalty  and  tribute  to 
Rom.xiii.     thg  si-^tg    l-hat  ]^Q  is  bound  to 

1, 2.'   '      think  about   and   pray  for   the 
powers    that    be ;    in   short,   that    he   is 


Life  in  Christ ;    Christ  in  Life.     75 

called  to  attend  willingly  and  earnestly 
to  every  form  of  relative  duty;  to  be 
the  model  married  partner,  and  ^^tc^"'^^*' 
parent,  and  child,  and  master,  and  servant, 
and  subject.  I  need  not,  however,  dilate 
upon  this ;  it  is  so  conspicuous,  so  pro- 
minent in  the  New  Testament  foreground. 
Only  let  the  fact  be  pressed  home  on 
conscience  as  well  as  on  memory.  The 
follower  of  Christ  who  spends  his  hours  in 
"  self-culture  "  of  any  soxtfor  its  ozv?i  sake 
is  just  so  far  not  a  Christian.  Be  it 
mental  information  and  elaboration,  be  it 
spiritual  self-protection  and  seclusion,  if  it 
terminates  in  itself  it  is  for  him  unlawful. 
He  is  detached  from  the  separate  interests 
of  self  decisively  and  impartially,  in  His 


'jd     Life  in  Christ  and  for  Christ. 

attachment  to  Jesus  Christ ;  and  to  Jesus 
Christ  accordingly  must  all  the  possessions 
and  all  the  training  of  his  personality  be 
always  referred.  And  most  certainly,  if 
he  listens  to  Him  to  whom  he  belongs, 
he  will  be  always  hearing  "a  voice  behind 
him  "  saying,  "  Live  for  others  because  for 
Me ;  spend  for  others  what  you  have  in 
trust  from  Me :  your  means,  your  know- 
ledge, your  strength,  your  heart."  The 
Christian  as  such  cannot  for  one  day  shut 
out  that  claim.  Whether  he  works  at  the 
moment  or  rests,  it  is  to  others,  because 
it  is  "  unto  the  Lord." 

It  is  indeed  most  true  that  this  great 
conspicuous  principle  of  the  Gospel  has  its 
limitations  in  exercise.     Beyond  question 


Life  in  Christ ;    Christ  in  Life.     77 

the  Christian  is  not  meant  to  be  ahvays 
thinking  articulate  thoughts  of  "  others." 
From  time  to  time  his  duty  as  well  as  joy 
and  rest  will  be  to  contemplate  and  adore 
his  God  and  Redeemer  with  a  directness 
and  isolation  of  worship  such  as  might  be 
paid  if  he  were  the  only  created  personal- 
ity in  existence.  And  when  he  does  go 
out  to  others  and  their  interests  in  definite 
thought  and  purpose,  it  will  be  (in  almost 
all  conceivable  cases)  under  some  inevit- 
able limits  drawn  by  his  own  time,  and 
capacities,  and  knowledge.  He  will  lose 
rather  than  gain  by  straining  after  a  dis- 
play of  "  interest  in  everything  ; "  leaving, 
perhaps,  manifest  "  duties  that  lie  near " 
in  order  to  exhibit  the  width  of  his  sym- 


78     Life  in  Christ  and  for  Christ. 

pathies  in  some  field  of  inquiry  or  activity 
which  his  path  (I  mean  God's  path  chosen 
for  him)  does  not  really  cross.     Many  an 
earnest   and   devoted   life   dissipates   not 
a  little  of  its  proper   strength   and  solid 
usefulness  in  such  an  effort.     Many  a  dis- 
ciple, for  instance,  forgets  that  few  things 
so  powerfully   attract   the   attention   and 
respect  of  "  the  world  "  as  an  unaffected 
but  unmistakable  unworldliness  ;  and  so 
he  wastes  time  and  power  in  misdirected 
efforts  to  be  "  all  things  unto  all  men," 
where  it  would  have  been  better  for  the 
very  purpose  in  view  to  watch  over  and 
develop    his    own    intimacy    with    Jesus 
Christ.     But  all  this  leaves  untouched  the 
great  principle  now  before  us.     Notwith- 


Life  in  Christ;    Christ  in  Life.     79 

standing  all  these  reserves,  the  Christian 
is  designed,  and  constructed,  and  sent, 
to  be  a  light  in  the  world,  to  be  salt  in 
the  earth.  He  is  to  welcome,  not  to 
shun,  human  intercourse  and  interests, 
as  his  field  of  life  and  work  for  God. 
Detached  from  worldly  "  love  of  the  world, 
and  of  the  things  in  the  world,"  i  Joh.  ii.  15. 
he  is  meant  all  the  while  divinely  to  "  love 
the  world "  as  his  heavenly  Joh.  iii.  16, 
Father  loved  it. 

He  is  to  watch  over  his  inner  separa- 
tion, above  all  things  that  he  may  be  the 
stronger  for  a  true  participation  with  his 
fellows.  As  regards  outward  separation, 
he  may  have  occasion — I  think  he  often 
will  have  occasion — to  incur  the  charge  of 


8o     Life  in  Christ  and  for  Christ. 

"  antiquated  Puritanism  " — a  word  of  no 
ignoble  history.  But  he  will  seek  never 
to  expose  himself  to  the  just  charge  of 
Pharisaism ;  "  I  am  holier  than  thou ; 
God,  I  thank  Thee  I  am  not  as  other  men 
are."  It  is  one  thing  to  be  decided ;  it  is 
an  altogether  different  thing  to  be  unsym- 
pathetic, to  be  separated  in  an  isolation 
self-righteous  and  censorious."^  ' 

As  we  close,  let  us  recur  to  the  double 
motto  of  these  chapters,  Life  in  Christ ; 
Christ  in  Life.  We  set  out  with  that  deep, 
radiant  truth  of  revelation — and  of  reve- 
lation  alone — the  believer's  Vital  Union 


*  I  venture  to  refer  to  a  little  tract  of  my  owti, 
The  Christian  and  the  World. 


Life  in  Christ;    Christ  in  Life,     8i 

with  Jesus  Christ ;  his  position  and  pos- 
sessions as  he  is,  by  grace,  "in  the  Lord." 
With  it  let  us  end.  It  is  the  root  and 
secret  equally  of  a  true  separation  and  a 
true  sympathy.  Are  we  indeed  Eph.  v.  30. 
"members  of  His  body"?  Are  we  in- 
deed related  to  Him  as  our  fingers,  as  our 
lips,  are  to  the  centres  of  physical  and 
pf  mental  action  ?  Our  fingers,  our  lips, 
are  appropriated  to  us  by  that  relation 
as  they  are  to  nothing  else ;  they  are  sej^a- 
rated.  But  they  are  also,  by  that  relation, 
connected  with  all  the  purposes  and  in- 
terests of  heart  and  head.  They  have  to 
be,  and  are,  busy  day  by  day  w^ith  a  thou- 
sand contacts  and  conversations,  very  pro- 
bably  most   miscellaneous,  certainly  not 

6 


82     Life  ill  Christ  and  for  Christ. 

always  physically  pleasant,  and  certainly 
very  often  fatiguing.  But  they,  fingers  and 
lips,  exist  for  the  use  of  the  ruling  powers 
of  the  being ;  they  thus  fulfil  the  law  and 
function  of  their  existence ;  and  it  is  for 
their  own  health  and  good  to  do  so  ;  to 
spend  and  to  be  spent  in  proportion  to  the 
energy,  and  activity,  and  largeness  of  inter- 
course, of  the  central  power.  Now  we,  who 
belong  to  Jesus  Christ,  and  are  "joined 
to  Him,  one  spirit,"  stand  thus  vitally 
related  to  a  Head  whose  interests  and 
whose  energies  are  indeed  wide,  deep,  and 
Psai.cxiv.g.  various ;  whose  "  tender  mercies 
are  over  all  His  works."  When  He  walked 
on  earth  He  scattered  round  Him  daily 
proofs  of  His  sacred  sympathy  with  not  only 


Life  in  Christ ;    Christ  in  Life.     St; 

the  eternal  but  the  temporal  needs  of  man  ; 
with  the  sorrows  of  not  the  many  only 
but  the  few ;  with  the  needs  of  the  weakest, 
and  of  the  lowest  of  the  fallen.  He  was 
loyal  to  the  home  of  Nazareth  ;  happy  in 
the  home  of  Bethany,  and  weeping  beside 
its  grave ;  divinely  kind  at  the  marriage 
of  Cana ;  attentive  in  His  deep  weariness 
to  the  hunger  of  the  multitude  in  the 
desert ;  watchful  over  His  mother  amidst 
the  agonies  of  the  Atonement ;  always  and 
everywhere  "having  compassion  Heb.  v.  2. 
of  the  ignorant,  and  them  that  were  out 
of  the  way ; "  detached  in  an  absolute  sense 
from  the  bondage  alike  of  man's  plaudits 
and  of  his  revilings,  and  yet  open  to  every 
appeal  for   love  and  mercy.     Such  was, 


S4     Life  in  Clmst  and  for  Christ. 

•and  is,  the  Head.  And  we  are  separated 
>to  Him,  and  united  to  Him,  as  His  limbs ; 
to  go  where  He  goeth,  to  do  what  He 
ipleaseth.  Separate  from  sinners,  He  yet 
was  no  recluse.  In  our  union  with  Him 
lies  at  once  the  law  of  our  life  as  a  life  of 
love  and  duty  in  the  world  of  concrete 
circumstances,  and  the  hidden  power  to 
carry  out  that  duty,  and  to  feed,  so  that  it 
shall  be  ever  burning  on  the  altar,  that 
fire  of  love. 


V. 

THE  BRIGHT  AND  MORNING  STAR. 


I  HEARD  the  voice  of  Jesus  say, 

"  I  am  this  dark  world's  hght ; 
Look  unto  Me,  thy  mom  shall  rise, 

And  all  thy  day  be  bright.'' 
I  looked  to  Jesus,  and  I  found 

In  Him  my  Star,  my  Sun  ; 
And  in  that  light  of  hfe  I'll  walk 

Till  travelling  days  are  done. 

BONAR. 


V. 

THE  BRIGHT  AND   MORNING  STAR. 

"  I  am  the  bright  and  morning  star.  ' — 
Rev.  xxii.  i6. 

''  I  ^HIS  is  the  last  place  in  Scripture 
■^  where  the  glorious  Saviour  bears 
witness  to  Himself.  A  few  lines  below 
He  once  more  promises  to  return ;  "  Be- 
hold, I  come  quickly."  But  of  His  own 
words  regarding  His  own  excellence  and 
majesty  this  is  the  last :  "  I  am  the  bright 
and  morning  Star." 

The   hours   of  the   great   Vision  were 


88     Life  in  Christ  and  for  Christ. 

almost    over.      The    Apostle    who    had 
walked  with  Jesus  long  ago  as  His  daily 
friend  had  been  entranced  for  awhile  into 
an  experience  of  His  presence  as  He  now 
Heb. vii. i6.  reigned  in    "the  power  of  an 
endless  life";  and  at  length  the  trance  was 
closing.    An  influence  altogether  from  God 
had  been  imprinting  on  John's  soul  the 
messages  to  the  Churches,  and  the  future 
of  the  Church ;  and  now  at  the  end  the 
spiritual  Voice  has  still  this  word  to  say ; 
the  Lord  speaks  of  Himself  once  more. 
Perhaps  the  shadows  of  literal  night  were 
rolling  from  the  rock  of  Patmos,  and  the 
literal   day-star  shone   out  in  the  region 
of  the  dawn.     But  however,  the  spiritual 
view  and  the  inner  word  were  all  of  the 


The  Bright  and  Morning  Star.     89' 

light  and  of  the  day ;  "  I  am  the  bright 
and  morning  Star. ' 

Our  blessed  Lord  speaks  here  in  a 
manner  which  is  indeed  all  His  own. 
Nothing  is  more  deeply  characteristic  of 
His  utterances,  from  first  to  last,  than  His 
witness  to  Himself.  It  is  one  of  the 
main  phenomena  of  the  Gospel,  most  per- 
plexing on  the  theory  of  unbelief,  most 
truth-hke  on  the  theory  of  belief — this 
self-witness  of  the  Man  of  humility  and 
sorrows.  Sacred  exemplar  of  all  that  we 
commonly  call  self-denial,  Jesus  yet  pre- 
sents Himself  always  and  unalterably  in 
terms  of  self-assertion,  and  such  self-asser- 
tion as  must  mean  either  Deity,  however 
in  disguise,  or  a  delusion  (may  He  forgive 


90     Life  in  Christ  and  Jor  Christ. 

the  word  if  its  mere  mention  is  irreverent), 
moral  as  well  as  mental,  of  infinite  depth, 
joh.  vi.  35,    "  I    ^"^    t^^   Truth ;    I   am  the 

viii.  58, 

xiv.  6.       Life  •  I  am  the  Bread  of  Life  ; 
I  AM ; "  such  is  His  tone. 

And  here  we  have  the  same  tone, 
perfectly  maintained,  as  the  same  voice 
speaks  again  from  amidst  the  realities 
of  the  Unseen.  The  imagery  indeed  is 
lifted  from  earth  to  heaven.  He  who  is 
Joh.  X.  II,   the   genial  Vine   and   the  labo- 

XV.   I.  ° 

rious  Shepherd  now  also  reveals  Himself 
as  the  Star  of  stars  in  a  spiritual  sky. 
But  the  novelty  of  the  glorious  term  only 
conveys  the  truth  which  had  always  stood 
in  the  very  front  of  the  testimony  of 
Jesus ;  the  truth  of  His  own  sacredness 


The  Bright  and  Morning  Star,     91 

and  glory  ;  the  doctrine  that  He,  the  Son 
of  the  Father,  is  the  ultimate  peace,  and 
hope,  and  joy,  of  the  soul  of  man. 

Let  us  enquire  a  little  into  this  divine 
utterance.  Many  treasures  must  lie  hid 
in  such  a  testimony  so  spoken.  Some  of 
them,  however  few,  we  may  hope  to  make 
sure  of  as  we  go. 

"  I  am  the  Star."  For  the  moment 
we  take  the  sentence  in  this  abbreviated 
form,  for  it  will  suggest  to  us  something 
of  the  reason  for  the  use  of  the  starry 
metaphor  at  all.  "I  am  the  Star " ;  why 
the  Star  ?  Most  certainly  the  w^ord,  with 
all  its  radiant  beauty,  is  no  mere  flight 
of  fancy.  Prophecy,  not  poetry,  gives  us 
these   last   oracles   of  the  Bible.     If  we 


92     Life  in  Christ  and  for  Christ. 

need  a  ready  proof,  we  have  only  to  recall 
the  clause  just  preceding ;  "  I  am  the  root 
and  offspring  of  David  ; "  words  which  are 
heavy  with  the  golden  weight  of  prophecy 
and  prophetic  history ;  part  of  the  long 
testimony  borne  by  Messiah  Himself  to 
the  divine  nature  and  structure  of  those 
Scriptures  w^hich  had,  as  a  matter  of 
recorded  and  verifiable  fact,  begotten  the 
astonishing  phenomenon  of  the  definite 
expectation  of  His  first  Advent.  In  close 
contact  with  that  sentence  occur  the 
words  before  us ;  "I  am  the  Star."  Here 
then  also  is  an  appeal  to  the  prophets. 
And  among  the  prophecies  in  which  stars 
form  the  symbol  there  is  but  one  which 
can   be   thought  to   point   to    Messiah — 


The  Bright  and  Morning  Star.     93 

the  prophecy  of  Balaam.     Balaam,  as  he 

heard  "  the  words  of  God,  and  ^'""^-  ^'^^^'■ 

4, 17- 

saw  the  vision  of  the  Almighty,"  had 
heard  of  a  mysterious  Person,  or  at  least 
a  mysterious  Power,  strong  to  conquer 
and  to  save,  and  had  seen  the  prospect 
figured  to  his  soul  as  a  Star,  destined 
in  other  days  to  rise  from  the  horizon 
of  Israel.  And  the  belief  of  the  Jewish 
Church,  before  and  in  the  lifetime  of 
Jesus,  was  that  the  Star  of  this  old  pre- 
diction was  the  King  Messiah. 

No  doubt  the  import  of  Balaam's  words 
has  been  variously  explained.  No  doubt 
the  whole  doctrine  of  definitely  predictive 
inspiration  has  been,  and  is,  most  labo- 
riously denied.     But  do  we  believe  that 


94     Life  in  Christ  and  for  Christ. 

these  words  of  the  Apocalypse  are  them- 
selves a  divine  reality  ?  Do  we  believe 
that  both  in,  and  thus  after,  "  the  days  of 
His  flesh  "  Jesus  undertook  not  only  to 
teach  but  to  foretell  ?  And  do  we  believe 
that  He  was  and  is  all  that  He  claimed  to 
be  ?  Then  we  have  passed  the  point  at 
which  for  any  a  priori  reasons  w^e  can 
think  it  seriously  difficult  to  believe  that 
He  had  been  already  foretold,  however 
long  before,  as  the  Star  of  Jacob. 

"  I  am  the  Star."  Prophecy  then 
spoke  of  Messiah  thus.  The  word  indi- 
cated His  kingly  dignity,  touched  and 
glorified  with  the  light  of  Deity,  or  of 
Divinity  at  least.  So  the  Lord  takes  it 
up   here.     He    claims    here    to   be    the 


The  Bright  and  Morning  Star.     9| 

mystic  King,  immortal,  spiritual,  divine ; 
the  regal  Conqueror,  quelling  His  enemies 
and  possessing  His  redeemed.  This  is 
what  appears  under  other  forms  in  other 
and  earlier  passages  of  the  Apocalypse^ 
"  He  had  a  name  written.  King  of 
Kings";  the  Lamb  is  "in  the  Rev.  vii.  17, 

xix.  16, 

midst  of  the  throne,"  which  is  ^xii.  3. 
"the  throne  of  God  and  of  the  Lamb/* 
But  now  we  look  further  into  the  text. 
It  not  only  claims  the  ancient  prophecy 
for  Jesus  as  the  King  of  the  new  Israel. 
It  expands  that  prophecy,  and  brings 
truth  out  of  truth  from  within  it.  For 
the  Saviour  does  not  only  assert  Himself 
to  be  the  Star,  the  bright  Star.  His  pre- 
sentation of  the  glorious  metaphor  has  in 


g6     Life  in  Christ  and  for  Christ. 

it  something  new  and  special ;  "  I  am  the 
Morning  Star." 

Why  was  not  the  word  Star  left  alone 
in  the  utterance  ?  In  pointing  to  Messiah 
as  the  star  were  not  the  ideas  of  brilliancy, 
and  elevation,  and  all  that  is  ethereal, 
sufficient  ?  No ;  not  sufficient.  Messiah 
Himself  so  qualifies  the  word  by  this  one 
wonderful  epithet  as  to  show  Himself  as 
not  the  King  simply,  but  the  King  of 
Morning,  around  whom  gather,  and  shall 
gather  for  ever,  all  things  that  belong  to 
tenderest  hope,  and  youngest  vigour,  and 
most  cheerful  aspiration ;  such  beginnings 
as  shall  eternally  develop,  and  never  con- 
tract into  fixity  and  decline.  He  claims, 
where  He  indeed  is  King,  to  be  the  secret 


The  Bright  and  Morning  Star.     97 

of  such  juvenescence  as   nothing  else  can 
ever   give  to  the  finite  spirit.     For  His 
Israel,  He  claims  to  be  the  ever-blessed 
Antithesis  to  all  that  has  to  do  \Yith  decay 
and  ruin,  to  all  the  woes  and  weakness  of 
melancholy,  to  all  "  profitless  regrets  and 
longings  vain."     Not  that  He  bids   His 
follower  crush  pain,  and  ignore  bereave- 
ment, and  forget  the  past.    But  He  asserts 
Himself  the  Master,  the  King,  of  a  future 
which  will  far  more  than  make  amends 
for  the  discipline  of  the  present.     And 
meanwhile,  being  the  Eternal  One,  He  is 
always  so  present  with  His  own  as  to  put 
them  already   into   vital  connexion   with 
that  future,  and  to  pour  its  strength  and 
joy  into  their  life  this  hour. 

7 


98     Life  in  Christ  and  for  Christ. 

"  I  am  the  Morning  Star."  Such  in 
part  is  the  import  of  this  last  testimony 
of  Jesus  to  Himself.  It  reminds  His 
happy  disciple  that  the  beloved  Lord  is  no 
mere  name  of  tender  recollection,  no  dear 
relic  of  a  perished  time,  to  be  drawn 
sometimes  in  silence  from  its  casket,  and 
clasped  with  the  aching  fondness  and 
sprinkled  with  the  hot  tears  of  hopeless 
memory.  He  is  not  Hesperus  who  sets, 
but  Phosphorus  who  rises,  springing  into 
the  sky  through  the  earliest  dawn ;  the 
pledge  of  reviving  life,  and  growing  light, 
and  all  the  energies  and  all  the  pleasures 
of  the  happy  day.  And  the  word  speaks 
of  a  kind  of  joy  for  which  the  open  noon 
would  not  be  so  true  a  simile.    It  suggests 


The  Bright  and  Morning  Star.     99 

the  joys  of  hope  along  with  those  of  fru- 
ition ;  a  happiness  in  which  one  of  the 
deep  elements  is  always  the  thought  of 
something  yet  to  be  revealed ;  light  with 
more  light  to  follow,  joy  to  develop  into 
further  joy,  as  the  dawn  passes  into  the 
morning  and  then  into  the  day. 

We  have  matter  here  then  for  some 
thankful  thoughts  on  the  blessings  of 
light,  and  happiness,  and  vigour,  and  hope 
which  are  bound  up  with  the  true  idea 
of  the  religion  of  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ. 
Here  we  are  reminded  how  remote  from 
melancholy  are  its  principles  and  its 
motives.  Here  is  One  able  indeed  to 
guide,  and  enliven,  and  develope,  the 
whole  of  existence  for  His  disciple ;  not 


lOO     Life  in  Christ  and  for  Christ. 

only  to  prop  his  dying  head,  but  to 
animate  the  fullest  energies  of  his  strong- 
est prime  ;  and  then  again  able  with  per- 
sistent grace  to  be  His  blessing  to  the  last, 
shedding  a  morning  light  over  the  decline 
and  shadows  of  advancing  years. 

Let  us  take  up  some  of  these  aspects 
of  the  truth  of  our  text,  and  think  a  while 
over  their  details. 

i.  First  then  we  are  reminded  here  that 
ijoh.  V.  3.  as  "His  commandments  are  not 
grievous,"  so  the  motives  He  gives  to 
animate  His  loving  follower  to  obedience 
are  not  melancholy.  I  would  not  be  mis- 
taken. The  religion  of  Jesus  Christ  is 
very  far  from  teaching  that  "there  is 
nothing  in  God  to  dread."    What  language 


The  Bright  and  Morning  Star.     lOi 


can  outdo  the  terror  of  the  warnings  of 
the  Saviour  when  He  speaks  of  what  is, 
according  to  Him,  the  sequel,  the  necessary 
sequel,  of  that  wide  road  on  which,  accord- 
ing to  Him,  so  many  travel  ?  But  this  is 
not  to  say  that  His  motive  principles  are 
things  of  gloom.  It  is  not  melancholy 
that  looks  direct  at  realities,  and  acts 
upon  the  view.  It  is  not  melancholy  to 
bid  us  gaze  in  earnest  on  the  unfathom- 
able mystery,  which  is  also  the  iron  fact, 
of  sin,  and  to  tell  us  without  reserve  what 
sin  must  lead  to,  in  the  spiritual  nature  of 
things.  Not  to  do  this  would  indeed  be 
melancholy  ;  for  it  would  be  the  reticence 
of  a  dreadful  irony.  But  the  Lord,  who 
speaks   about   the    abyss,   does    so    that 


102  Life  in  Christ  mid    or  Christ. 

He  may  speak  with  infinite  earnestness 
and  the  smile  of  His  own  welcome 
about  the  rescue  and  the  remedy.  And 
that  remedy  is  no  shadowed  secret,  no 
nocturnal  initiation ;  it  is  the  morning- 
light  of  the  knowledge  of  Himself.  The 
life  eternal,  the  destruction  of  the  second 
death,  is  the  knowledge  of  Himself;  and 
to  know  Him  is  to  live  in  light  indeed. 
It  is  to  touch  a  sympathy  boundless  alike 
in  its  tenderness  and  in  its  power.  It  is 
to  deal  always  and  everywhere  with  One 
who  is  not  poetic  legend  but  the  central 
Rock  of  history.  He  has  proved  Himself 
in  the  fields  of  fact  to  be  a  reality  for  ever ; 
and  He  is  exercising  at  this  hour  in  human 
experience  a  personal  influence  too  vast, 


The  Bright  and  Morning  Star.    103 

too  manifold,  too  peculiar,  to  be  explained 
by  any  mere  memory  of  recorded  and 
departed  power. 

He  being  such,  and  such  being  the 
knowledge  of  Him,  what  are  in  brief  His 
sacred  principles  for  the  man  that  seeks 
Him  ?  In  their  essence,  simply  these ; 
first  to  trust  Him,  then  to  follow  Him. 
The  soul  is  directed,  for  its  repose  and  its 
life,  far  from  subjective  bewilderments  of 
thought  to  things  objective  altogether,  be- 
cause altogether  His,  not  ours  ;  to  the 
blood  of  His  Cross,  and  to  the  power  of 
His  Resurrection.  And  for  its  progress, 
for  its  hope,  it  is  directed  still  outward 
from  itself,  because  still  to  Him  ;  into  the 
ethereal  open  air  of  His  will.  His  posses- 


104    ^{/^  ^'^  Christ  and  for  Christ. 

sion,  His  glory.     It  is  called  every  day  and 
every  hour  to  a  surrender  of  itself  to  Him  ; 
to  the  daylight  reality  of  a  true  self-dedica- 
tion to  One  who  does  indeed  reserve  to 
Himself  the  right  to  be  silent  when  He 
pleases,  but  who  has  proved  Himself  worthy 
of  an  absolute  trust  in  regard  of  His  per- 
fection of  wisdom,  and  power,  and  love, 
ii.  Again,  this  glorious  epithet  of  the  Star 
of  Salvation,  this  morning- word,  reminds 
us    that  not  for  a  part  only  but  for  the 
whole  of  the  earthly  course,  early  as  well 
as  late,  late  as  well  as  early,  Jesus  Christ  is 
the  true  light  to  lighten  every  man.     Not 
for  the  sick  room  only  and  for  the  dying 
bed   is  His  Gospel  good.     Let  us  often 
thank  God  that  it  is  good  there.     Many  of 


The  Bright  and  Morning  Star.     105 


us  have  stood  and  watched  in  the  face  of 
others  all  that  can  be  seen  of  death,  perhaps 
while  the  very  "desire  of  our  ^^^^-  ^-^i^'- 
eyes  "  was  being  taken  from  us  ;  and  there 
we  have  felt  a  little  of  the  mighty  difference 
between  the  moment  before  death  and  the 
moment  after.     Or  perhaps  our  own  life, 
even  in  its  early  prime,  has  hung  in  balance, 
and  some  of  "  the  powers  of  the  Heb.  vi.  5. 
world  to  come  "  have  touched  us  through 
the  thin  curtain  of  extremest  weakness. 
One  religion  only  will  do  at  such  a  time ; 
the  religion  which  has  really  dealt  with  sin, 
and  with  death  ;  the  Gospel  of  a  Redeemer 
who  has  willed  to  die  beneath  the  rod  of 
His  own  law,  and  has  risen  again  with  the 
keys  of  the  Unseen  for  ever  in  His  hand. 


io6    Life  in  Christ  and  for  Christ. 

"Jesus,  I  cast  myself  on  Thee, 
Mighty  and  merciful  to  save ; 
Thou  wilt  go  down  to  death  with  me, 
And  gently  lay  me  in  the  grave. " 

There  is  but  one  religion  which  can  make 
such  language  as  this  the  natural  speech 
of  its  followers.  Let  us  be  glad  that  there 
is  one. 

But  this  same  religion  is  not  only  the 
last  light  for  dying  eyes.  It  is  the  star 
of  the  morfiing  of  even  this  lower  life. 
There  is  that  in  it — or  rather  in  Hni  who 
is  His  ow^n  religion — w^hich  is  of  all  things 
fitted  to  enter  with  harmonious  power  into 
all  the  confiding  joys  of  childhood,  and 
into  all  the  wade  excursions  and  strong 
ascents  of  youthful  thought  and  will.     One 


The  Bright  and  Morning  Star.     107 

condition  does  the  Lord  propose  to  the 
young  soul,  as  to  all  souls — the  condition 
of  submission  to  Himself.  And  where 
through  His  grace  that  condition,  in  its 
true  sense,  is  accepted,  there  an  element 
essentially  of  strength  and  gladness  will 
be  found  to  develope  within  the  life ;  a 
cheerful  assurance  of  a  companionship 
most  warm  and  tender  because  divine,  of 
a  vivid  sympathy  meeting  every  true  need 
of  grief  or  happiness,  of  a  wisdom  which 
concerns  itself  with  every  detail  of  every 
day,  of  an  affection  to  which  the  best  en- 
dearments  of  earth  can  but  point  as  to 
their  glorious  archetype.  And  above  all 
this,  and  with  it  all,  there  will  be  the  power 
of  the  known  presence  of  an  invisible  but 


io8    Life  in  Christ  and  for  Christ. 

awful  purity,  and  of  the  spoken  promise 
■ — in  connexion  with  that  presence — of  a 
final  life  of  deathless  joy.  And  without  a 
iaw  of  unbtxiding  holiness  above  it,  and 
without  an  immortal  hope  before  it,  the 
gladness  of  the  most  youthful  heart  carries, 
lurking  beneath  it,  the  sure  causes  of 
gloom,  and  failure,  and  melancholy  decay. 
Will  my  brethren  who  have  just  entered 
on  their  academic  course  *  suffer  me,  in 
the  sincerity  of  respectful  earnestness,  to 
point  this  appeal  direct  to  them  ?  AVould 
you  have'  this  new  life  of  yours,  rich  be- 
yond all  reckoning  in  possible  happiness 
and  good,  would  you  have  it  not  merely 

*  See  the  Prefatory  Note  to  this  volume. 


The  Bright  and  Morning  Star.     109 

safe  but  glad,  glad  with  a  pleasure  which 
will  bear  looking  into,  and  fruitful,  as  it  is 
meant  to  be,  of  results  full  of  pleasure  for 
yourselves  and  others  ?  The  sky  for  most 
of  you  is  bright  with  the  morning  of  this 
world.  Not  that  many  have  not  already 
tasted  something  of  the  sadness  of  things  ; 
many  a  man  comes  up  here  for  his  first 
university  term  experienced  already  in  loss 
and  sorrow.  But  these  burthens  in  their 
fulness  cannot  yet  have  come  to  the  most 
among  you,  thank  God ;  and  the  hope 
and  joy  of  life  prevails.  Well,  do  you 
really  care  to  perpetuate  hope,  and  to 
make  joy  immortal  ?  Do  you  care  for 
that  which  will  be  in  you  a  well  of  youth 
springing  up  into   the   endless   youth  of 


no    Lije  in  Christ  and  for  Christ. 

the  sons  of  the  resurrection  ?  Then  assure 
yourselves  of  Jesus  Christ,  who  is  the 
Morning  Star.  Acquaint  yourselves  with 
Him,  in  that  special  and  definite  contact 
of  faith  which,  finding  Him  to  be  Saviour, 
inevitably  also  apprehends  Him  as  Friend, 
and  as  Master.  In  Him  so  known  you 
will  find  that  which  will  lend  an  immortal 
brightness  to  all  other  things  which,  being 
pure,  are  capable  of  reflecting  immortality. 
You  will  find  in  Him  an  influence  which 
will  intensify  all  just  enjoyment  and  will 
glorify  all  healthful  knowledge  by  connect- 
ing it  with  things  to  come  j  an  influence 
without  which  nothing  else,  no,  nothing, 
can  be  safe  from  impurity  and  decay ;  no 
social  pleasure,  no  delights  of  reason  or 


The  Bright  and  Morning  Star,     in 

imagination,  no  charm  of  letters  or  of  art 
Take  up  these  things  and  leave  your  Lord 
behind,  and  you  will  be  only  carrying  your 
possessions  to  their  burial,  with  your  face 
to  the  region  of  disappointment,  weariness, 
and  final  loss.  You  will  be  on  your  way 
to  find  the  hollowness — on  these  terms — 
of  all  delight;  to  be  at  length  above  all 
things  tired  of  your  own  principles  of  life 
and  your  own  tone  of  thought.  But  take 
up  these  things,  as  you  can,  and  make 
sure  of  your  Lord  with  them,  as  you  may ; 
receive  them,  and  use  them,  for  Him  ;  and 
you  are  bearing  your  possessions  along  the 
path  of  life,  and  light,  and  day,  straight 
towards  the  rich  eternal  issues  of  all  the 
training,  whether  of  affliction  or  gladness. 


112    Life  in  Christ  and  for  Christ. 

through  which  you  pass  under  the  leading 
of  Him  who  is  the  Morning  Star  of  the 
Epiphany  of  glory. 

iii.  In  a  few  short  years  there  may,  there 
must,  come  over  you  the  sense  of  an  ap- 
proaching maturity  and  fixity  as  to  earthly 
conditions  of  life  and  action.  You  will 
find,  late  or  soon,  that  as  to  this  world  your 
rate  of  movement  in  work  and  in  enjoy- 
ment is  no  longer  what  it  was.  But  if 
Eph.  iii.  17.  indeed  "  Christ  dwells  in  your 
hearts  by  faith "  there  will  be  a  charm 
there  which  will  not  only  console  you 
under  the  change,  but  will  glorify  it  to 
you.  As  eternity  approaches,  you  will 
more  distinctly  see  the  connexion  between 
it  and  time.     The  appointed  task,  even 


The  Bright  and  Morning  Star,     1 1 3 


under  the  burthen  of  the  failure  of  out- 
ward power,  will  be  met  by  you  as  those 
only  can  meet  it  who  know  that  all 
things  are  links  in  the  indissoluble  plan 
of  an  eternal  Friend,  and  that  the  veil 
is  already  parting  which  shuts  out  for  a 
season  the  open  view  of  the  perfection 
and  acceptability  of  all  His  will. 

Grace  can  work  strange  and  beautiful 
contradictions  to  the  natural  decay  of 
our  sense  of  enjoyment  of  external 
things.  I  know  of  one  whose  life  had 
been  spent  in  a  city  rich  with  splendid 
monuments  of  the  past ;  and  it  had  been 
a  life  of  dull  indifference  to  all  things 
noble  and   fair.      But  his  Redeemer   at 

length  became  to  him  a  reality ;  and  then 

8 


114    Life  in  Christ  and  for  Christ. 

he  said  that  never  before  had  he  seejt  the 
beauty  and  grandeur  of  the  place  where 
he  had  Hved  so  long.  I  know  of  another, 
a  brother-student  of  our  own,  who  so  far 
differed  from  the  great  Poet  of  Immortality 
as  to  declare  that  the  "  splendour  in  the 
grass  and  glory  in  the  flower,"  and  the 
infinite  beauty  of  the  vernal  woods,  had 
never  truly  come  to  his  perception  till  he 
Rom.viii.     discovered  the   li^ht   of    "the 

39-  ° 

love  of  God  which  is  in  Christ  Jesus  our 
Lord." 

So  vre  have  traced  a  little  way  some  of 
the  suggestions  of  this  heavenly  utterance. 
We  have  remembered  the  divine,  the  dear, 
Redeemer  whose  Gospel  is  the  very  anti- 


The  Bright  and  Mornmg  Star.     1 1 5 

thesis  and  antidote  to  that  melancholy 
which  is  always  akin  to  perplexity  and 
weakness.  We  have  seen  in  Him  the  true 
Secret  for  a  true  security  and  perpetuity  in 
the  days  of  life's  full  vigour,  and  then  as 
the  Revealer  of  that  glorious  continuity  of 
time  with  eternity  which  keeps  the  cancer 
of  despondency  out  of  earthly  maturity 
and  decline. 

May  we  not,  in  conclusion,  move  a  step 
further,  and  find  here  a  promise  which 
is  concerned  also  immediately  with  the 
heavenly  world  itself  ?  He  who  here  calls 
Himself  the  Star  is  elsewhere  called  the 
Sun ;  and  we  might  think  that  Mai.  iv.  2. 
He  speaks  here  as,  in  a  certain  sense, 
His  own  Forerunner ;  the  Firstborn  from 


Ii6    Life  in  Christ  and  for  Christ. 

the  dead,  whose  own  resurrection  is  the 
heralding  of  His  own  final  triumph.  But 
it  seems  truer  to  the  analogy  of  His  other 
metaphoric  titles  to  view  this  title  as  be- 
longing properly  not  to  any  passing  phase 
of  His  majesty  but  to  its  essence  for  ever. 
What  elsewhere  He  claims  to  be,  that 
in  perpetuity  He  is.  On  the  throne,  as 
Rev.vii.  17-  truly  as  on  the  Cross,  He  is 
still  the  Lamb.  In  the  fields  of  heaven 
He  is  still  the  Shepherd,  "  leading  His 
flock  to  the  living  fountains  of  water." 
And  surely  in  the  upper  skies  He  will 
thus  be  for  ever  the  Star  of  Morning ;  the 
eternal  pledge  of  a  life  which  will  be  for 
ever  young,  of  energies  which  will  accumu- 
late without  end,  of  a  service  before  the 


The  BriM  and  Morning  Star.     1 1 7 


throne  which  will  always  deepen  in  its 
ardour  and  its  triumph,  of  discoveries  in  the 
knowledge  of  the  Eternal  and  His  love 
which  will  carry  the  experience  of  the 
blessed  from  glory  to  glory  in  a  succession 
which  can  never  close. 

Avidi  et  semper  plenty  quod  hahent 
de  side  rant. 

"  At  thy  right  hand  there  are  pleasures 
for  evermore." 


Ever  filled  and  ever  seeking,  what  they  have  they 

still  desire  ; 
Hunger  there  shall  fret  them  never,  nor  satiety  shall 

tire  ; 
Still  enjojing  whilst  aspiring,  in  their  joy  they  still 

aspire. 
From  the    Latin    of   Damiani  ;    translated    in 

"  Chronicles  of  the  Schonberg-Cotta  Family." 


VI. 

CHRIST    THE    LORD    BOTH    OF    THE 
DEAD    AND    LIVING. 


And  fear  to  sorrow  with  increase  of  grief 

When  they  who  go  before 

Go  furnished  ;  or  because  their  span  was  brief. 

^  sf*  "I*  •t*  ^ 

For  doubt  not  but  that  in  the  worlds  above 
There  must  be  other  offices  of  love, 
That  other  tasks  and  ministries  there  are, 
Since  it  is  promised  that  His  servants,  there, 
Shall  serve  Him  still. 

Archbishop  Trench,  On  an  Early  Death. 


VI. 

CHRIST    THE    LORD    BOTH    OF    THE 
DEAD  AND  LIVING. 

AN    EASTER    STUDY. 

"For  whether  we  live,  we  live  unto  the  Lord  ; 
and  whether  we  die,  we  die  unto  the  Lord  : 
Whether  we  live,  therefore,  or  die,  we  are  the 
Lord's.  For  to  this  end  Christ  both  died,  and 
rose,  and  revived,  that  He  might  be  Lord  both 
of  the  dead  and  living." — Rom.  xiv.  8. 

T^EW  lines  of  Scriptural  enquiry  are 
more  rich  in  suggestion  and  blessing 
than  the  study  of  the  mentions  of  the 
Resurrection  of  the  Lord  Jesus  in  the 
Epistle   to   the   Romans.     They   form   a 


122     Life  in  Christ  and  for  Christ. 

considerable  group  of  passages,  scattered 
over  the  Epistle  so  as  to  occur  in  just 
eight  out  of  the  sixteen  chapters.  They 
are  always  incidental,  never  dealing  (as  St 
Paul  addresses  himself  to  do  in  i  Cor. 
XV.)  with  the  proof  of  the  Event,  but  none 
the  less  therefore  contributing  all-important 
evidence  to  that  proof.  For  such  passing 
but  joyful  allusions  to  this  great  founda- 
tion of  the  Christian's  peace  and  hope, 
made  at  a  time  when  living  memories  of 
the  date  referred  to  were  alike  multitudi- 
nous and  vivid,  form  by  their  very  manner 
the  most  impressive  of  testimonies,  when 
we  study  them  (so  to  speak)  with  our 
whole  nature,  and  in  sympathy  with  the 
attitude  and  circumstances  of  the  writer 


Lord  both  of  the  Dead  and  Living.   123 

and  the  first  readers.  These  allusions, 
again,  are  always  doctrinal.  Each  is  made 
for  the  sake  of  spiritual  and  eternal  truth. 
The  Apostle  brings  in  the  Resurrection 
always  to  prove,  with  its  deep  and  glorious 
logic,  with  a  dialectic  which  rises  direct 
from  the  miracle  to  its  everlasting  signifi- 
cance, some  inestimable  point  of  truth 
about  the  believer,  or  about  the  Lord,  or 
about  both  at  once. 

Among  these  passages  I  take  the  last 
in  the  Epistle. 

I  do  not  attempt  to  examine  the  verses 
in  detail  throughout,  or  to  say  Rom.  xiv.s, 
many  words  about  their  context.  It  is 
enough  to  remember  that  the  great  aim  of 
the  Apostle  is  to  bring  home  to  the  Chris- 


124     -^{/^  ^'^  Christ  and  for  Christ. 

tian  believer,  as  such,  the  fact  of  his  belong- 
ing to  Jesus  Christ  as  personal  property ; 
belonging  as  vassal  to  Sovereign  ;  and  this 
not  only  by  way  of  might  but  by  way  of 
right.  The  Lord  has  not  only  seized  him 
as  Conqueror.  He  has  done  so  ;  but  he 
has  also,  and  antecedently,  acquired  him 
as  Redeemer.  He  has  died  for  us,  and 
risen  again.  In  the  virtue,  in  the  merits, 
in  the  claims,  of  that  finished  work  of 
atonement  and  of  victory,  He  has  entered, 
from  the  point  of  view  of  eternal  right 
and  law,  upon  the  absolute  possession  of 
His  people  as  His  property. 

One  manifest  spiritual  lesson  of  such 
a  passage  I  point  to,  but  do  not  enlarge 
upon.      It   is   a   lesson   which,    God   be 


Lord  both  of  the  Dead  and  Living.   1 2  5 


thanked,  is  being  learned  with  a  special 
attention,  earnestness,  and  self-application 
by  ever-growing  numbers  of  His  people  in 
our  day ;  the  lesson  that  our  redemption 
is   not  only  from  condemnation   and  its 
eternal  issues  of  woe  but  into  a  relation 
to  the  Redeemer  which  is  through  and 
through  a  relation  of  property,  of  blessed 
servitude  by  purchase,  of  our  being  now 
and   for  ever,   and  in   all  things,   in  our 
whole  selves,  and  in  all  their  circumstances, 
"  not  our  own."     This  is  the  first  i  Cor.  vi.  19. 
and  most  obvious  message  of  the  passage. 
And  its  very  prominence,  both  in  Scripture, 
and  in  the  present  thought  of  believers, 
shall  for  this  once  allow  us  to  do  no  more 
than  refer  to  it  and  pass  on. 


126     Life  in  Christ  and  for  Christ, 

The  message  of  this  passage  to  which 
I  call  full  attention  here  is  a  less  obvious 
one,  but  one  of  precious  worth,  and  one 
which,  in  the  glorious  light  thrown  by 
Easter  upon  the  world  beyond  the  grave, 
seems  peculiarly  appropriate  to  the  hour. 
The  Apostle  four  times  over  in  this 
short  paragraph  makes  mention  of  death, 
and  of  the  dead.  "  No  man  (of  us) 
dieth  to  himself";  "Whether  we  die, 
we  die  unto  the  Lord " ;  "  Whether  we 
die,  we  are  the  Lord's  "  ;  "  That  He  might 
be  Lord  of  the  dead."  And  this  last 
sentence,  with  its  mention  not  of  the  dy- 
ing but  of  the  dead,  reminds  us  that  the 
reference  in  them  all  is  to  the  Christian's 
relation  to  his  Lord,  not  only  in  the  hour 


Lord  both  of  the  Dead  and  Living.   127 

of  death,  but  in  the  state  after  death.  It 
is  not  only  that  Jesus  Christ,  as  the  Slain 
One  risen,  is  absolute  disposer  of  the  time 
and  manner  of  our  dying.  It  is  not  only 
that  when  our  death  comes  we  are  to  ac- 
cept it  as  an  opportunity  for  the  "  glorify- 
ing of  God"  in  the  sight  and  in  j^h^iY'^^^' 
the  memory  of  those  who  know  of  it. 
It  is  that  when  we  have  "  passed  through 
death,"  and  cojne  out  upon  the  other 
side, — 

"  When  we  enter  yonder  regions, 
When  we  touch  the  sacred  shore," — 

our  relation  to  the  Slain  One  risen,  to  Him 
who,  as  such,  "  hath  the  keys  Rev.  i.  18. 
of  Hades  and  of  death,"  is  perfectly  con- 


128     Life  in  Christ  and  for  Christ. 

tinuous  and  the  same.  He  is  our  absolute 
Master,  there  as  well  as  here.  And  we,  by 
consequence  and  correlation,  are  vassals, 
servants,  bondservants  to  Him,  there  as 
well  as  here. 

I  lay  this  message  of  the  verse  before 
my  reader,  not  as  if  it  were  in  the  least 
degree  new.  But  it  is  a  truth  which,  I 
cannot  but  think,  richly  repays  the  Chris- 
tian's repeated  remembrance  and  reflec- 
tion, and  that  not  only  in  the  way  of 
asserting  the  eternal  rights  of  our  blessed 
Redeemer  over  us,  but  in  the  way  of  shed- 
ding light,  and  peace,  and  the  sense  of 
reality  and  expectation,  on  both  the  pro- 
spect of  our  own  passage  into  eternity  and 
the  thoughts  we  entertain  of  the  present 


Lord  both  of  the  Dead  and  Living.    1 29 

life  of  our  holy  beloved  ones  who  have 
entered  into  eternity  before  us. 

Everything  is  precious  which  really  as- 
sists the  soul  in  such  thoughts,  and  at  the 
same  time  keeps  it  fully  and  practically 
alive  to  the  realities  of  faith,  patience,  and 
obedience  here  below,  here  in  the  present 
hour.  While  the  indulgence  of  unauthor- 
ized imagination  in  that  direction  is  almost 
always  enervating  and  disturbing  to  the 
present  action  of  Scriptural  faith,  the  least 
help  to  a  solid  realization  and  anticipation, 
supplied  by  the  Word  that  cannot  lie,  is  in 
its  nature  both  hallowing  and  strengthen- 
ing. And  such  a  help  we  have  assuredly 
here. 

He  who  died  and  rose  again  is  at  this 

9 


130     Life  in  Christ  and  for  Christ. 

hour,  in  holy  might  and  right,  the  Lord  of 
the  blessed  dead.  Then  the  blessed  dead 
are  vassals  and  servants  of  Him  who  died 
and  rose  again.  And  all  our  thought  of 
them,  as  they  are  now,  at  this  hour,  "  in 
those  heavenly  habitations  where  the 
souls  of  them  that  sleep  in  the  Lord 
Jesus  enjoy  perpetual  rest  and  felicity,"* 
gains  in  life,  in  reality,  in  strength  and 
glory,  as  we  see  them,  through  this  narrow 
Rev.  V.  I.  but  bright  "  door  in  heaven,"  not 
resting  only  but  serving  also  before  their 
Lord,  who  has  bought  them  for  His  use, 
and  who  holds  them  in  His  use  quite  as 


*  Visitation    of  the   Sick  {Prayer  for  a  Sick 
Child). 


Lord  both  of  the  Dead  and  Living.   1 3 1 


truly  now  as  when  we  had  the  joy  of  their 
presence  with  us,  and  He  was  seen  by  us 
living  and  working  in  them  and  through 
them  here. 

True  it  is  that  the  leading  and  essential 
character  of  their  present  state  is  rest,  as 
that   of  their   resurrection   state   will   be 
action.     But  the  two  states  overflow  into 
each  other.     In  one  glorious  passage  the 
Apostle  describes   the   resurrection   bliss 
as  also  "rest."     And   here  we  -  Thess.  i. 
have  it  indicated  that  the  heavenly  inter- 
mediate rest  is  also  service.     What  the 
precise  nature  of  that  service  is  we  can- 
not tell.     "  Our  knowledge  of  that  life  is 
small."     Most  certainly,  "  in  vain  ouxfattcy 
strives  to  paint  "  its  blessedness,  both  of 


132     Life  in  Christ  and  foy  Christ. 

repose  and  of  occupation.  This  is  part 
of  our  normal  and  God-chosen  lot  here, 
2  Cor.  V.  7.  which  is  to  "  walk  by  faith,  not 
by  sight,"  ov  Slol  ctSovsy  not  by  Object  seen, 
not  by  objects  seen.  But  blessed  is  the 
spiritual  assistance  in  such  a  walk  as  we 
recollect,  step  by  step,  as  we  draw  nearer 
that  happy  assembly  above,  that,  whatever 
be  the  manner  and  exercise  of  their  holy 
life,  it  is  life  indeed  ;  power,  not  weakness ; 
service,  not  inaction.  He  who  died  and 
revived  is  Lord,  not  of  us  only,  but  of 
them. 


Date  Due 

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